Plant Medicine, Psychedelics And Microdosing

Maya Shetreat, MD

Oh thank you so much for having me.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Well for all the viewers. I want to make sure that they know how incredible you are. And I’ve had the opportunity myself to enjoy some of your ceremonies which are really really powerful. So I highly suggest everyone you know, to really check out what doctor should treat this is doing. You started as a neurologist. You’re now working also as an herbalist urban farmer and your author of the dirt cure, which has been translated into 10 languages. So it’s spreading dirt is spreading around the world. So that’s awesome. She’s been featured in the New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, the Dr. Oz Show and more. Dr. Maya is the founder of the terrain institute where she teaches earth based programs for transformational healing including professional training programs for psychic psychedelic assisted approaches. She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers from around the world. And is a lifelong student of ethno botany plant healing and the sacred. Well we’re gonna be talking about some really cool stuff today.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well I threw in some tongue twisters there for you so I’m impressed.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Thank you. I’m not this bad. It’s just that. Yeah, it’s been a lot going on in the morning and then all of a sudden you don’t read well it wasn’t bad at all.

Maya Shetreat, MD

It wasn’t bad at all. 

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Or like they say like Zoo Lander say you know Children that don’t read good, you know. So I still think that’s a classic. My wife will disagree. She still thinks You’re Gone with the Wind is a classic. And yeah, and she’s right. But anyway, us dudes, we gotta hold on to those movies. So, so tell me a little bit, I mean, botany plans and they in themselves have an energy to themselves, have a spirit to themselves that we really can benefit. It’s almost like, you know, a lot of indigenous people, they look upon them as almost like plant people. So, tell me a little bit about that and the energy that they carry for us that we can benefit from.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think one of the most exciting things about this reemergence of psychedelic medicines and you know, that’s sort of the more technical term that’s being used in the medical and mainstream establishment, but, you know, I call them master plants or teacher plants because of how I learned and kind of became acquainted with these plants. And what’s exciting about it is that yes, absolutely. In indigenous communities, these plants are considered to be teachers that carry wisdom. Ancient wisdom. And they’re considered to be in fact much older and wiser than we young humans are. And so for indigenous communities, the physical benefits or the physical impacts of these plants are not the primary impact, right? It’s actually expanding the conversation even in mainstream medicine right now in mainstream Western medicine, because you know, it’s not just physical, it’s not just mental, but it’s also emotional and spiritual and this spiritual connection. 

So the way that I learned at the paradigm and into which I was initiated says that actually physical illnesses downstream of of spiritual well being and what gives you spiritual well being is to be in right relationship, right, relationship with yourself with those around you, with the land that you stand on and with the invisible world, right? Your ancestors and the plants and you know, the wind and the water and the right. So all of these, all of these elements being in relationship and in alignment with those is what dictates all of the other stuff that we think is primary in conventional medicine and even in integrative medicine, right? It’s like the physical, the mental, even the emotional all of that is of course incredibly important. But the question is, where do you start, right? When we think root? 

Cause we’re like excited and integrative medicine to be talking about diet and exercise and all of those things are tremendously important because, you know, in this paradigm, our body is this incredibly sacred container holding our spirit right? And so we want to treat it as an altar, right? As a sacred space. So none of those things are discounted, but simply starting with the the relationship in this case between you and this teacher plant together, right, cultivating an intimacy, which as we’ll discuss does not even mean always ingesting and having big giant experiences and we can, you know, talk about that more, but but simply cultivating intimacy and relationship and coming with reverence and humility to these plants, they will in this paradigm bestow on you their wisdom as to how to live in right relationship and and have a life of meaning and enjoy.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

So it’s almost then that when you’re ingesting them or or even if you’re not ingesting them, you’re just kind of in their presence, you know, cause they have a certain energy about them that they will then shift how we vibrate. I mean kind of the energy aspect of ourselves and obviously that will then shift how we relate to the rest of the world and how we view the rest of the world, which will then translate into the physical appearance. So to say, I mean what we manifest in the world and and and and obviously health, disease is part of that, but it’s so much more.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, yeah, so let me give you a few examples and if you’ll forgive me, I might like nerd out a little on the science.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

I love it. 

Maya Shetreat, MD

For a moment here because I sort of like having my foot in both worlds if or many worlds as we might say. But you know, so first I’ll just talk about it from the standpoint of mitochondria, Okay, so mitochondria to me are incredibly spiritual organelles in the cell because first of all, most people probably know this, but mitochondria are not actually of human or even eukaryotic origin. They’re actually bacterial in origin. I think that’s pretty well accepted now at the time that it was first spoken about by Lynn Margulis. It was considered to be incredibly controversial but it actually evolved from sparky. It’s like the same bacteria that are involved in lime. And you know, I mean syphilis and right. But they partnered, they were in a relationship with the eukaryotic cells that together they found that collaborating, they were able to, you know, become responsible for the evolution of these incredibly complex creatures that we are. 

So mitochondria are already very cool and and in fact part of how all the bacteria and our microbiome in our bodies are so potent and have so much impact is that they communicate with our mitochondria directly through something called quorum sensing and quorum sensing is the way bacteria talk to one of another. So mitochondria are like oh yeah, I know that language, I can talk human, you know human and sell language but I can also talk bacteria. Language. And so there’s these conversations and I personally find that to be very spiritual and beautiful energetically because it’s like so much around what is happening in relationship, right? But then what we’re finding is that, let’s say for example Ayahuasca is a particular plant medicine, a psychedelic plant medicine. And one of the things that they found when they studied the science of what Ayahuasca is doing is that D. M. T. One of the components of this Ayahuasca brew. 

Okay that people drink D. M. T. is an indirect antioxidant that impacts chaperone proteins which I’m not going to get into all the like deep deep nerdiness but part of what they are doing is in fact protecting the mitochondria and helping to prevent cell death and protect the cell. It’s just it’s it’s so beautiful and profound like what we’re finding is that on literally a molecular level part and I even love that it’s impacting chaperone proteins. Like again it just sounds like okay this is like the companionship, right? It’s all about relationship and companionship and so what we’re seeing on literally a physiologic level is that these medicines are affecting us at our energy centers are mitochondria, right? And that is very much about you know mitochondria are these incredible beings really that are constantly they’re sentinels, they’re constantly sampling the environment and yes you know emitting frequencies that determine our frequency, right? So that’s the first way I would think about it that I think on a very energetic level these plant medicines work and it’s completely scientific and also completely energetic the other way that I think to your point of it changes how we see the world. I’m gonna talk about it on a psychological level at a neurological level. So what these medicines do is they actually shut down a system? Okay. A network in our nervous system. And it’s called the default mode network. And part of what this network is responsible for doing is kind of ego, right? Like who am I? And so they call it the mean network and it’s all different parts of the brain that are communicating with one another. And what this network does. One of the things that this network does is it actually does it controls something called predictive coding and predictive coding basically describes what happens when you walk into any situation, you walk into a new situation. 

You think oh I’m picking out all of the different details of this new environment and I’m piecing it together and I know everything that’s happening here, but that’s actually not what our brains do at all our nervous system. When we come into any new room, new situation, anything we pick out a few details of what’s happening right then and there and we fill in all of the rest of the details with what’s happened to us in the past. And it’s great because if you are, you know, entering a dangerous situation just for example, you want to know, you know, you don’t want to be like oh the sharp teeth and oh like the growling mouth and oh right, like you want to know there’s like something about to pounce on you and like the lion’s gonna chase you, right? So you need to know that. But then if that’s ever happened every time into the future, you’re gonna fill in details that might actually not be what’s really happening in the present moment. 

So when you experience some of these sacred plant medicines, they shut that down temporarily. And what that allows is for you to suddenly basically see the world for a period of time without that predictive coding. So without overlays of all your past stories, all your past traumas, all of the things that you hold and project onto the present moment that’s gone. And so you get this opportunity then to experience the world completely differently and just having that moment, right? And I call these medicines portals, they’re not, they don’t fix everything just because you take them or or interact with them. But they can open those windows, open those doors that then you’re suddenly able to see people relationships the world, your life in, with new eyes, right? With a new perspective and and then you can with the right support and this is a really important part, right? Again, it’s not just the medicine itself and it never has been even with indigenous communities and all the way all the way back. This has always been a supported process, a ceremony that has preparation in advance sometimes for weeks, support during and support after. So in those cases you can then take that perspective that what you were able to see through that portal and apply that to your life and change things hopefully very much for the better.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

That’s incredible. You did very well. That was impressive. That’s impressive. Yeah. Because it really takes us out of that survival mode. You know, like you’re talking about that we step into a room and our brain is hardwired to protect us, you know, from any threats and and they’re in order to be able to do that. We need to create a separation what is me and what is outside and then interpret the outside. And we always look at threats because we’re wired to survive. And now we are then given the opportunity to then step into and viewing things as they are, you know, as they are, you know, the real ness and then be able then to move out of that threat state. 

And and and can I activate part of the brain? That is more yeah, more analytical and more kind of recognizing what really is taking place rather than living in that survival mode. And so just that alone is such a huge piece, you know, because we know when we’re in that survival mode, you know, cortisol is secreted when inflammatory state. You know, we can become an insulin you know, less insulin responsive. You know, we can’t transport sugar into the cells. The mitochondria then don’t get the nutrients doesn’t get the nutrients that it needs. And so we have all of that that takes place when live in that survival mechanism doesn’t mean that the survival mechanism is bad. It just needs that we just need to balance that and not live in that all the time should be a moment and then we should be able to experience the world as it is. 

Maya Shetreat, MD

Absolutely. And you do exactly what you’re saying is need that balance right? It’s not that it’s not that you don’t want to use all of the past wisdom and experience that you’ve had. It’s not always bad. You just don’t want to be um you don’t want to be compromised by it, right? And so even on a cellular level, we can be in cell danger mode, or we can be in this regenerative, you know, kind of optimal functioning. And what we want to do is make sure that cell danger mode is only turned on when it absolutely needs to be and then it turns off again until it’s needed again.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yeah, that’s perfect. So a lot of people they when they hear the word psychedelic, they think of stoners and they think of, you know, people that are not very high functioning and want to escape the world, but in reality for what I’m hearing, you’re actually then stepping into the world more by incorporating psychedelics. You know these plant medicines into your, into your world. 

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. You know, I want to say something because people do think about psychedelics as drugs, right? And I think you know, I always used to joke when I was talking about the dirt cure people say what’s the difference between like a germ and a microbe? And it’s just germ is just a pejorative term for a microbe, right? It’s all in how you interact with it. Similarly with psychedelics, you know, what’s the difference between a medicine and a drug? A drug, right? It’s all in how you engage, right? A drug is a pejorative term, potentially for a medicine and almost every drug out there was originally a very sacred plant that was revered in fact for a very, very long time. And I could talk about the coca plant right? Which obviously we know has had a real negative impact because of how it was purified and used and so on. Similar stories would come from like the poppy plant, right? That’s what, you know, led to opioids, right? Which have become a terrible problem, but it’s not necessarily the fault of the plant, right? I’ve engaged with for example, the coca leaf is used in altitude. 

I was in Ecuador and they gave me a coca leaf to chew on because I had altitude sickness many of us did when we were very very high altitude. My heart was beating and racing and I was nauseated and I was lightheaded chewed the coca leaf for one minute and I felt completely fine but not altered just like my altitude sickness was gone right. So I do think it’s very important to consider again your relationship with the medicine because on the one hand these are absolutely medicines and we can talk about the studies that are being published on depression, on eating disorders, on O. C. D. PTSD addiction. It’s a treatment of very effective, maybe one of the most effective treatments for addiction from nicotine and alcohol all the way to heroin. And you know so very broad spectrum of very positive results for a lot of people when it’s done appropriately. But of course it can be like anything, people can use anything you know as an escape. And I think that these medicines certainly could be used that way and have been used that way. 

So you know and I think cannabis could which is not a psychedelic but could fall in that category too that there are people who have engaged with it and found incredible healing and medicine and there are people who probably engaged with it in a not very respectful way or maybe as an escape which you know is a different way of engaging. So I do think that again a lot of this has to do with coming in right relationship and thinking about the relationship as reciprocal in other words you’re not going to these medicines which are very powerful, you know, even if you’re not in ingesting or not, you know having a big cannonballs and fireworks experience which you don’t have to have but no matter what you’re coming to these medicines with a sense of respect and learning, taking what they have to offer you whether your macro dosing, whether your micro dosing, whether your quantum dozing and then thinking what is my responsibility here is my responsibility to keep coming and coming and coming again and again and saying oh oh I want more, I want more or is it how can I take these lessons and apply them in an important and meaningful way in my life and maybe even in the lives of others like what am I being called to now, what is the message? What is the medicine of this plant guiding me to do? Right?

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

So it’s almost like you have to then step into this with with a very specific intention otherwise because they are so powerful and usually then if you don’t come with an intention then it can take you in whatever direction and it will then have maybe not as good of an impact on you and I and I like I like kind of how you see it, it’s it’s a reciprocal, I mean you you you you give and and you receive. So it is important that to come with a, with the giving with the attitude in order to be able to really fully experience the true effect of these plant medicines.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Absolutely. I think, you know, you said it very, very well. And I do think that again, what happens with a lot of these medicines and what has happened with a lot of the medicines that we’ve talked about is that they’re commoditized and you know, I don’t like to always share this. But when I was in South America, they would talk about the psychedelic tourists, right? Or the right, They called them called them junkies and and I was sort of trying to get to the bottom of, you know, what they were talking about and what they meant was not, you know, the way that we will use that word, let’s say in the United States, but more like we would just take and take and take and take and take, we just want more of everything. Right? And I, and I thought that was a really, you know, it’s always interesting to see your culture through the eyes of other cultures, sometimes very jarring, right? And you know, so the question is exactly that like again, always going back to right relationship reciprocity coming with reverence and humility and not just being in that taking, taking.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

So you mentioned different number of different psychedelics, you know, cocoa, you know, and yeah, suicide. and so what would be kind of a safe step if a person wants to experience this kind of plant medicine? What would be a safe step for an individual to do that? It’s not scary and they don’t feel like they’re gonna lose control and go crazy or I mean whatever perception an individual has in regards to psychedelic drugs, you know, what can they do to experience this in a positive way?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, so these medicines and I’ll just kind of touch on what some examples of psychedelics are. Coca is actually not coca, not cocoa like chocolate, but coca, the coca plant, which is what was used to become cocaine. But in fact the coca plant is you know, it is much much more than that and it doesn’t actually get people high in that way. When it’s used in that, you know, in its original form.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

That’s an interesting part. So when it’s in its original form it comes with all these other cofactors that then makes the experience and quite different than in, you know the refined that we see, you know with drug cartels and so forth.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well and that’s true with every plant plant, whether we’re talking about these more potent kinds of anthropogenic or psychedelic plants or even if we’re talking about really any plant and you know I am an herbalist. So I always believe that using the whole plant with very few exceptions is energetically and physiologically the best approach. So whether I’m talking about chamomile or I’m talking about cannabis or I’m talking about skullcap or or any of them, you know when we purify them that is when they become different and they’re not coming in the way with all of as you said not just co factors but thousands and thousands of different compounds that we think with our you know little young brains right in the in the evolutionary cycle we think like we’re gonna make make something better than what this plant is. And we do make something sometimes stronger by taking the strongest compounds but we’re not always making something better because all of those other compounds and elements and you know we could say the spirit of the plant that that’s in the whole medicine works very differently than right. And so that I think is a big piece. 

And the psychedelics themselves like Ayahuasca, san, Pedro, cactus, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms. LSD is actually technically a psychedelic. A lot of people now are seeing research coming out about M. D. M. A. Technically not a psychedelic. But it’s called an m pathogen and it is altering and ketamine also not technically a psychedelic but is a dissociative but all of these are kind of being lumped into this category. And you asked about how to interact with them. So I will say that many of these are now being decriminalized. So previously they were illegal and that actually is probably going to change within the next year or two. We already have decriminalized in a lot of places in the United States alone, like Washington D. C. San Francisco, Oakland, Denver, the state of Oregon. So we’re seeing actually even Connecticut I think is going to be opening many many clinics. So we’re seeing this I think even much more quickly than cannabis changed. 

We’re seeing psychedelics being decriminalized or made more accessible. And I think on a federal level, the current administration actually just said within two years they want to make this accessible. So we are seeing that change. But people do need to know that if you go and engage with certain kinds of these medicines outside of a clinical study other than ketamine you right now depending on where you are, it could be considered illegal. So that’s just important to know you want to know that you’re in a place where it is at least decriminalized. There are ways to engage without worrying about that. So we have something that is made within the presence of the medicine with ceremony but is not illegal and doesn’t have any psychedelic activity. So you’re not gonna like trip or hallucinate it can help people to see things differently and journey and it does open that portal and build that relationship with the plant which then you may eventually decide down the road. I do want to engage. So we do have these; they’re called quantum drops. And they are a way that people can engage safely and legally and and for people who are nervous or who even for people who want to integrate an experience they already had or want to prepare for an experience or who take medications and maybe couldn’t engage with these medicines. That is a way that they can engage.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

So the quantum drops, what do they contain or do they contain any one of these plants and or a mixture of them or what are they for people that I’m sure they’re curious.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. Their vibrational products. So I part of how I work with these medicines as I grow them but not for my own consumption. So they are like my teachers and part of my offering right? My reciprocal offering was that I and I have I mean it’s funny stories about how these all came into my possession in fact because it wasn’t like I was just looking to like have a forest of you know san Pedro cacti or something but I do have many of these plants and again I don’t ingest them. I take care of them and so I actually at particular times of month or a year like very particular times like equinox for example things like that. We actually have a device that measures the music of the plants. It takes the vibration and frequency of the plants and by putting it on the leaf or on the cactus and you know, grounding it in the roots and makes music. 

We do medicine songs and ceremony and we have a container of liquid that becomes this vibrational product of this ceremony. So we are you know smudging. We have music, we have my medicine songs , stones, all of the different things that then go into this liquid which you know we I’m sure you are talking about in this series. You know the way that water and fluids can hold energy and then we make a medicine from that and we even have our production facility. We found an amazing scientist who has a production facility where he plays the medicine songs and has an alter while our products are being bottled. So it’s very very special. And we’ve worked with it now with a lot of people because I mean you know we wanna we wanna know that it’s actually going to help people and it’s been very very profound and beautiful.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yeah and that’s also incredible. I mean the majority of our bodies we consist of water and so obviously like you’re mentioning the water holding frequencies and they then studies you know showing that the intention and the energy how that shifts the structure of the water. And then obviously the opposite, you know you’re negative intention will really make it look ugly and and and they’ve been able to take photos of these and so it’s really it’s really powerful, you know by programming that fluid like that you know liquid that you will then ingest and then that energy will then shift the structure within yourself. So that’s really really cool. So let’s say let’s say an individual is in a state, you know where things are legal, let’s say they’re in Oregon or they’re denser and or they’re wanting to go to that location in order to be able to experience something. What is how should one go about doing that? Is that a safe thing to do? I know there are a number of people doing like micro dose. You talk about micro dozing, macro dozing, quantum dozing. You know, tell me a little bit about that.

Maya Shetreat, MD

So I do consult with people and coach people through these kinds of experiences because I do think it’s very important to have people, I mean whether they’re credential you don’t have to necessarily have an M. D. Although I do but people who are credential and really understand a lot about these medicines and how to find safe environments and safe medicines right? Because anything could be anything right? And we we really don’t always know so a lot of things have been happening underground for a long time and you know, I think it’s really important to have some kind of verifiability but people also I think are finding through word of mouth as well, I think you know this isn’t in my mind something you just want to kind of like, I think a lot of people might have had their first experience with this like you know, as a kid at a the younger generations at raves or the older generations, you know, and kind of their parents basement when they were going through their hippie phase or whatever it is. But I think, you know from the standpoint of really engaging with the medicine, you want to do it in a safe way and I actually have resources free resources that people can access through my website about how to safely engage with these medicines, how to find testing if they are right because I don’t, I’m not going to police how people are engaging, I want to make sure that people are safe and doing this in the safest and most held and most positive way possible.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And so what would be then the benefit of like micro dozing you, you’re talking about, you know, all the health benefits can you achieve these health benefits through micro dozing as well, Micro dose ng.

Maya Shetreat, MD

So micro dosing is most commonly done right now with psilocybin, which is the, you know, magic mushroom. It doesn’t one of the key points about micro dosing is it doesn’t alter you in a way that you feel like you’re seeing things differently or that your perception of reality is shifted to the point that you can’t operate. So people can micro dose and go to work, drive a car, take care of their kids, right? And I think that’s a real benefit for a lot of people who don’t feel like they can engage with this sort of macro dose experience where they’re going to be incredibly altered. For some people that’s what they feel called to. But for a lot of people, they want to see if they can experience benefits without necessarily having to, you know, take a break from being, you know, in their lives. And so micro dosing offers that and yes, it’s absolutely effective, more and more, we’re seeing studies. It’s a little harder to study in an academic setting because they like to have things that have a very specific beginning and end in a controlled setting. 

So going, you know, doing a journey with a medicine, it’s like x number of hours you’re there, you take the medicine, you’re not leaving with the medicine, right, you’re not, there’s not other altering factors. It’s just you’re here beginning to end and they can control the whole thing. But we’re seeing with micro dosing that actually seems like it’s effective for auto immunity for chronic pain syndromes. So I’ve seen people with like long C0V!D for example, or vaccine injury recover really beautifully with micro dosing. Chronic pain, like cluster headaches or migraines or trigeminal neuralgia. So really difficult to treat conditions and then anxiety, depression. We’ve absolutely just seen really profound benefits even with these very tiny doses that do in this case contain the actual plant material right? Or mushroom material which is different than the quantum dozing. So it’s very very profound. 

And no you don’t have to have like I said, you know that whole tremendously altering experience. And you know what we do see also is that the benefit you can see the benefit for days after even one micro dose. So it’s not just the day that they will take the micro dose, but then for days after that they’re still experiencing the benefits. People also say they just find it very easy to not smoke or not drink or not or or easier to like exercise or take good care of themselves. So there’s the studies that have been done. You know people a lot of them are just descriptive like what has your experience been and they’ve published really really profound shifts where people just feel like kind of more of a sense of self love and more of an ability to just take good care of themselves, which is like yes, please, you know what I mean?

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

More of that and and that’s kind of the image you have, you you have actually the opposite image when you think of psychedelics, then you have, you have kind of that stoner image, I mean, and so then then you’re thinking of people that are less able to take care of themselves, less drive to change their habits, you know, that are conducive to better living. So for an individual that let’s say they wanted to have, you know, they can’t break the sugar habit, you know, then this would be a powerful tool than to use in addition to then obviously how they view themselves as an individual because a lot of times, you know, working on your weight and having challenged with that has a lot to do with self image and then, you know, past experiences, but then also just the addiction of the food in itself. So this would be a powerful tool to help to break that cycle, it sounds like. 

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, it absolutely can be yes.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And also I was thinking for like executives that are wanting to function on a higher level where you’re wanting to be able to consider more options as solutions and have your brain functioning on an optimum level, I mean to bring something like this would be really powerful.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah so one of the things that these medicines do is they create connections where there weren’t connections before. Right so it’s neural plasticity plus right plus plus. And so I do I work with a lot of CEOs and creatives and entrepreneurs to coach them through these kinds of experiences because micro dosing experiences to help them kind of access those shifts so that they can just sort of walk into problem solving and seeing where they need to shift or change or where they want to go next with more ease and and this is not just I mean it’s obviously physiologic but it’s also right going back to that idea of the the energy of the plants or the spirit of the plants are kind of right? If you’re coming in a good way then they can feel guided.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And then we have I mean we talked about the quantum dozing which is you know that the quantum drops we hold kind of the energy of the plant without actually ingesting the plant in itself. But then you have the macro dozing which is what you were talking about where people come for a specific moment and they have the experience and then they leave without the plan but they experience still persist. So what should a person expect out of that kind of an experience what what can happen and how should they, how should they be different after or how can they be different after that type of an experience?

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, so I’m glad you asked that because I think, you know, there’s a lot of sort of stigma and story around this idea of having a bad trip, right? And that kind of goes back to people when they were engaging with these medicines and maybe not coming in a very reverent way or in a very held way, right? Not getting that preparation before, during and after. So, and I’ll say there the idea of a bad trip being something that might be an unpleasant experience is not necessarily unusual in the sense that, right, if you think about this idea of the default mode network that we talked about earlier, being responsible for your ego, right? For what makes you feel like you, a lot of what we talk about in terms of psychedelics is ego death meaning and this is a very ancient idea and you know, it has been around a very long time. You don’t need a psychedelic to have an ego death. There are a lot of other ways that can happen. 

Like, you know, getting a diagnosis of a big illness can be a kind of ego death, a marriage ending or changing a career loss of any number of things, right? Can do that, right? It can, it can shift, you can kind of make you feel like you are not the same person that you were before. But we all know that is typically not always, but typically difficult. It’s unpleasant in the moment, right? Until we kind of are reborn into that new identity. It feels very uncomfortable for many people. Some people can go into these experiences and have these journeys or trips or whatever you want to call them and it can be very beautiful and very pleasant and very wonderful. And also some people can go into those experiences and have very difficult, very frightening experiences that can feel traumatic, even just the experience itself. And although the medicine is doing what the medicine needs to do, it can be so difficult for some people that they feel that that macro dose experience can be, you know, a very bad and difficult memory. And there’s really no way to 100% know in advance what kind of experience you’re gonna have, no matter how much you try to prepare, you just want to know that you’re gonna be with people a sitter or a you know, whether you’re in a study, whether you’re with a therapist, whatever it may be that we’ll be able to guide you and hold you and keep you safe and help you feel safe as safe as possible during the experience. 

But the fact that it would be difficult doesn’t mean that the medicine’s not doing what the medicine is supposed to do. What can happen on the other side of that though is just with one dose. One of those kinds of experiences right? You know you can people people have been able to walk away not feeling a sense of depression after they’ve tried everything. Everything that is available for depression. They can walk away just after one experience feeling like they’re not that depressed person anymore that they were does it mean there everything is perfect for them etcetera that they don’t need support after that. Not necessarily but that intractable depression that stuck nous that can be gone. PTSD similarly you know and there are studies now coming out with M. D. M. A. 

I mean I have a program that I teach all of the science, all of the studies, all of the newest literature and you know ways to engage but you know PTSD eating disorders which are so difficult to treat in our conventional system. One dose this is being explored. Even people who have terminal cancer and feel tremendous terrible anxiety and depression about the idea of dying. Which I mean you know obviously is not stranger or unusual but they can go and have these kinds of experiences. Actually N. Y. U. is one of the places where they do these academic trials and many people come out feeling like at peace about this next transition. So you know what these medicines are able to do doesn’t always feel good right in the process, It may or may not, especially with the macro dose experience, but there is that surrender, there is that kind of shift of identity and there is that ability to become, as you might say, unstuck from wherever you may have been maybe for for decades, maybe for your whole life.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And it’s and I actually had interviewed on one of my podcast integrated cancer solutions. I integrate, I interviewed a gentleman with cancer that had gone to N. Y. U. for that experience. You know, he’s a medical doctor and he said that that was the best thing. I mean before he had tremendous fear of dying, leaving his family, you know, severe anxiety and then after that experience he was at peace with everything and he his cancer was doing better. I mean it’s amazing when you shift out of that anxiety mode, survival mode, how that impacts immune system and how you then deal with something as stark as a cancer diagnosis. So one of the things, you know, you talked about the loss of self, the loss of the wants a loss of self, loss of ego, you know, and obviously we hold onto views of ourselves and we have experiences traumas all these different things that we build into the ego and to be able to have something, you know, like a macro dozing experience to be able to peel off that aspect so that you can see yourself in a much more true way, even though obviously when you are, you get to see yourself, you get to see that ego and get to see kind of the scary things along with that it becomes, I mean to me that becomes a really powerful tool to really accelerate or accelerate you into being who you truly want to be.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, I think very much so, and I like that idea, right? Again, that accelerating or like, oh it’s opening a door or window that might have previously been closed, you still have to engage right afterwards, it doesn’t all just change for you, but you know, the disclaimer there also is that then you may need to change your life, right? And and one of the things that I think it kind of, you know, to the point of being unstuck right, it involves making sometimes decisions that, you know, moving or changing a job or changing a relationship or you know, things that were okay for you are tolerable for you before may no longer feel tolerable and that is a way that you’re kind of getting nudged to be more true to yourself, right? One of the reasons we do get stuck very often is not just because of things that happened to us in the past, but the way that we live into those things every single day of our lives. So you know, it’s very profound, it’s very beautiful. It certainly happened to me in my own experience as well. I mean, you know, if you want to ask why a neurologist has become really like, you know, a medicine woman and you know, teaching people about, you know, plants and relationship and terrain and all of these things. But it is easier to do those things because you see, you see them and you know, maybe before you couldn’t really see it.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And I would, I would think that as a neurologist, if you step outside of the box of the medical box, then recognizing that the neural development that takes place utilizing these type of medicines is just so much more than you can do pharmaceutically.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, I mean, I think the pharmaceutical industry believe, believe me is very excited to get their hands on these medicines and in fact, you know, they’re saying, oh well we’ll make a drug where you won’t have the psychedelic experience, you know, ayahuasca without the vomiting and and you know, hello donations like this will be a designer drug kind of, and it remains to be seen, you know, we’ve run into this problem as we’ve discussed before when we don’t kind of know what we’re getting ourselves into. But absolutely, these plants are very wise, they’re very powerful and they have really profound lessons and medicine too to bring to us if we come in the right way.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And they have evolved over time, you know, meaning that they are at the spot where they’re at with their chemical constituents and their energetic frequency based upon all the thousands of years that they have been in existence.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah, absolutely. And I do want to say just you know, before we close that not not everyone should be running to take these medicines necessarily. And not every medicine is for everyone either. So for one person, there might be 11 particular plant or medicine that really calls to them versus another person versus and this is part of why the quantum drops are. I think going to be helpful to people is for them to see what they’re drawn to and what opens things up for them the most, working with them on a quantum level. So then should they still feel called to go to, you know, a stronger micro dose macro dose, what have you? They might know what direction to go in because as these become decriminalized or legalized and they’re available. You know, it’s not like it’s not just a free for all right. You want to go to for most of us anyway, we want to go to the medicine that’s gonna really be the one that’s appropriate and right and most healing and productive for us rather than having to write and try everything out there.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so how do people where can they go then to learn about these things. I mean I know you mentioned that you teach a lot of classes. You and also these quantum drops. Are they available for the public? And tell them a little bit about that.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Yeah. Absolutely. So I have free resources on my website at drmaya.com. D R M A Y A dot com. And we will give you a link that people can go straight to some of those free resources. So you know they can explore that and see you know if there’s anything just so they can familiarize themselves. I do have a course as well. That’s for anybody that they can learn the basics about actually medicinal mushrooms and psychedelics so that they can just feel like a little fluency and you know if they’re interested. And then I have a bigger course, a bigger training program for professionals who want to do psychedelic integration coaching. And that we do once a year. So people can get on the waitlist for that. And then when we open registration we let them know. And the quantum drops are also available as well on my website.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Wonderful. Well Dr. Shetreat it’s always a pleasure to see you kind of just just be part of your incredible wisdom. And I mean the knowledge that you bring to the world with the energy that these plans represent is such powerful medicines. So thank you so much for bringing this to the public.

Maya Shetreat, MD

Well, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.