The Manosphere Report

0:00Awe is good for reduced inflammation, elevated vagal tone, reduced long COVID symptoms.

0:07We have people with long COVID, just a minute of awe a day, reduced long

0:13COVID symptoms. It's good news, right?

0:15And there's so much science on it that I just, now I think medical doctors

0:20are starting to think like, I'm going to prescribe nature, I'll prescribe music through awe,

0:25right, as a mechanism. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and

0:31science -based tools for everyday life.

0:36I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of

0:41Medicine. My guest today is Dr.

0:44Dacher Keltner. Dr. Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology and the co -director of

0:49the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

0:52Dr. Dacher is an expert in the science of emotions and their role in social

0:56dynamics and bonding. Today, we discuss his fascinating work on the science of emotions, including

1:01the role of teasing in social bonding, the role of embarrassment in social bonding, and

1:06his fascinating work on awe and the things that lead to awe.

1:10As he describes, awe is not elusive.

1:12It happens when we shift our perception from a very small scale to a very

1:16large scale or back again, such as when we suddenly reach a new horizon or

1:21visual vista. Today, you'll understand what all of that really means, and more importantly, how

1:25you can create this incredible thing that we call awe in everyday life.

1:29We also talk about the critical aspect of human bonding in groups and the things

1:33that both establish and inhibit deep human bonds.

1:36So today is a very practical as well as conceptual conversation that no doubt will

1:40change the way that you think about your life every day and think about opportunities

1:45for awe every day. As you'll soon see, Dacher Keltner is a truly special scientist,

1:50known for his incredible rigor and creativity in the study of emotions, but also continually

1:54offering you, the public, ways to be and feel genuinely better and to get more

1:59out of life. It was a true honor and pleasure to host him.

2:02Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching

2:06and research roles at Stanford.

2:08It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer

2:11information about science and science -related tools to the general public.

2:15In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

2:18And now for my discussion with Dr.

2:21Dacher Keltner. Dr. Dacher Keltner, welcome.

2:25Good to be with you, Andrew.

2:27Aw. Yeah. I think we all intuitively know what it is, and yet we also

2:33don't know how to articulate it.

2:35Yeah. I want to say the words overwhelm, excited.

2:39I get the physical sensation of a lift.

2:42I don't think anyone ever said the word awe and then collapsed into a turtle

2:45position. That's right. Maybe we could explore that and your thoughts about that.

2:49But what got you into awe?

2:52Yeah. And I love the word lift.

2:54That's really interesting. Yeah, I was a young scholar in the science of emotion that

2:59really Paul Ekman was a pioneer in.

3:02You know, and that field in the, you know, 90s and early 2000s was really

3:09focused on negative emotions. You know, and you know the science, right?

3:13Anger, fear, fight or flight physiology, amygdala, cortisol, disgust.

3:18You know, Paul Ross and John Hype.

3:22And thinking about emotions from that lens and it, as a young scientist, and given

3:30the powerful tools of emotion science of Darwin and Ekman and how to just observe

3:35phenomena, it didn't make contact with my life and my own experience.

3:40You know, I was raised as a wild child in the late 60s in Laurel

3:45Canyon and, you know, it was like music and social change and protest and, you

3:52know, and beauty. And I was raised by a dad who's a visual artist and

3:57my mom taught romanticism and Virginia Woolf and awe and the mind.

4:01And I was like, wow, there's all this stuff that our science, my science can't

4:08speak to. Music and visual patterns and dance and collective movement and, you know, someone

4:15like Martin Luther King and why he makes me cry, you know.

4:19And I remember feeling this and asking Paul Ekman, I was like, you know, what

4:25should I do with my career?

4:26And he's like, study all, you know.

4:28And so that got me going.

4:31If we could, maybe we could talk about the faces for a moment.

4:35You know, I think every psychology and neuroscience student sees these faces of disgust, of

4:40pleasure. Darwin talked about this.

4:44Babies are often presented in parallel with those pictures of adults where they'll show a

4:49baby, like, you know, recoiling from something or, you know, wide -eyed and leaning in.

4:54And, you know, there always seems to be a motor component to this that maybe

4:57isn't as captured in those two -dimensional photographs.

4:59But what's the story about their hardwired facial emotions?

5:04And what are the revisions to that story that I'm probably not aware of?

5:08Yeah. Thank you for asking that.

5:10You know, I've spent 30 years working on that very problem.

5:15Paul Ekman came in and, you know, as you've suggested, right, he did this revolutionary

5:21work in New Guinea, you know, showed photos of six of them.

5:24motion, static photographs of anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, and a smile.

5:29They kind of interpreted the faces like you or I would, naming it, using the

5:36right words to describe those faces.

5:39And that, you know, and this is how science occasionally works, which is just by

5:45accident that became the field.

5:47And there are a lot of debates about how reliable those faces are, how universal

5:53are they in different cultures.

5:55Ekman really posited sort of a strong universality.

5:58That's been contested by Jim Russell, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and others.

6:03But since then, there are controversies around how hardwired they are.

6:09Do they occur reliably in a child's development?

6:12Yes and no. You know, young children showed disgust expressions like social mammals do.

6:20They wince at bad smells, just like you or I would.

6:24Anger is a little bit trickier to pin down developmentally.

6:27But then our lab and several labs around the world, you know, Jess Tracy at

6:32UB, British Columbia, Disa Souter, and I want to talk about this computational work, started

6:38to expand the vocabulary of faces.

6:42And now there's a lot of data that suggests there are 20 different facial expressions.

6:47Laughter, love, compassion, awe, you know, whoa, embarrassment, shame, pain, you know.

6:56And that in some sense has broadened the taxonomy of emotions.

7:02We used to think of six.

7:04Now there are probably 20 distinct states in the mind.

7:08And that's where the field is heading is to really start to think about physiological

7:13patterns, brain patterns of these distinct states.

7:16And I'll tell you, the hardwiring question, I mean, it's hard science to do, right?

7:23Just to imagine videotaping people from five different countries, getting their emotional expressions and then

7:32making sense of them. It used to take one hour to code the facial muscle

7:38movements of one minute, right?

7:40So this is slow science.

7:42And I would really encourage listeners and viewers to go to alancowen .com.

7:48And I had a grad student at Berkeley, Alan Cowen, who, you know, he's a

7:55computational genius. And he looked at our old science and said, we can use AI

8:01to code the face. And he did it with Google engineers.

8:05He coded 144, 2 million videos from 144 cultures and 16 facial expressions, 75 %

8:17overlap across cultures in how we show awe at fireworks, concentration on a test, you

8:24know, laugh at friends. So right now, I would say 50 to 60 % is

8:29hardwired as part of who we are in our evolutionary history.

8:32And then the rest is subject to variation in interesting ways.

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11:32I'm gonna ask a question that may or may not be possible to answer.

11:36Yeah. But if anyone could, it would be you, and it's not a test.

11:40Here's what I'm thinking. The relationship between emotions and what we call motor patterns, movement,

11:47is obviously very close, right?

11:49Disgust or recoil, explore awe, anger, et cetera.

11:54And then there's this other node, which is language, right?

11:59So we have emotions, motor, language.

12:02Right. Obviously, those can't be dissociated.

12:05But can we imagine somebody, let's just like hypothetical person, who can keep their body

12:13very still while they're angry and be very articulate?

12:19That includes not moving their hands.

12:21We'd probably think perhaps that person's like sociopathic, but that's not the picture I'm trying

12:25to paint. And then on the other extreme, you can imagine somebody who is very

12:33angry and is gesticulating a lot and moving like we can immediately say, yeah, that

12:37makes sense. And we could do this for any emotion.

12:40Yep. Right? So how should we think about emotion as an experience and how it's

12:46expressed along these three axes, right?

12:48Right. Which is motor, language, and then the emotion itself.

12:52I feel like without conceptualizing that, I, as a true novice of this, right, this

13:00isn't my area of understanding or expertise, I can't really understand what an emotion is.

13:06But if I understand how those are linked, maybe that's a portal into that.

13:11Yeah, no, I mean, it's a profound question, Andrew, and it's central to our field,

13:17which is, you know, and I appreciate it coming out of your scientific background of

13:23studying other mammals and other species.

13:25And there are these motor patterns that you see an emotion around the world.

13:32When you soothe a child that's crying, right, you're going to bring it in close

13:35and caress and touch and have emotion.

13:38When you're, you know, when you're fighting a rival or when you see rotten food,

13:45you're going to, that motor pattern will be there.

13:47You know, and that's part of our research, that 75 % of that is this

13:51motor pattern of facial musculature and body and skeletal muscles and how we respond to

13:56the emotional events of life.

13:58And then we have this massively complicated, you know, conceptual system that puts words to

14:04experience. And that's mainly what we study in psychological science, is just, oh, I'm feeling

14:11angry or ashamed or embarrassed or love or compassion.

14:14And we know, and your question points to this, like, very often they're disconnected, right,

14:21the motor pattern and the language we use and how I would interpret it in

14:25another person. On balance, they correlate point two, so they're just weakly.

14:31They're kind of these streams of behavior that are just part of who we are,

14:37right, our motor patterns and language.

14:40And there are a lot of ways to think about it.

14:42You could think about cultures that value being calm, like a lot of East Asian

14:47cultures. Be calm, don't disrupt things, don't blurt out, don't protest, right?

14:53And you'll see this disconnect.

14:55You could think about certain people who they just are more authentic and their motor

15:01patterns come out in expressions and they will tell you how they feel.

15:04So it's a central problem that we grapple with.

15:09And then I love your third part of this equation of emotion science, which is

15:15the feeling, the emotion. Michael Pollan is right, you know, this new book on consciousness,

15:20the conscious feeling of something.

15:22We think we can get to it with words.

15:25I don't think so. You probably wouldn't either, right, studying the other species you've studied,

15:30right? It's some weird mixture of everything that's happening in your body.

15:35And ironically, the emotion or the feeling is still one of the uncharted territories of

15:42our field. Why, as these complicated motor patterns unfold and words are unfolding and images

15:51and memories and visual things that you study, how does that all come together in

15:56my feeling of compassion or awe?

15:59And we barely know. You know, we just don't know.

16:02Every once in a while, I'll try and think about a concept from way outside

16:07of standard science, like the chakras or something.

16:11And it's kind of interesting, right?

16:12I mean, even if one looks at it just purely as a Western scientist, this

16:17idea that maybe there is a confluence of… of nerves and vasculature and stuff that

16:23makes you feel kind of like rooted at like, and calm, right?

16:28Versus like up in your head.

16:30I've been watching this really interesting Instagram channel.

16:34It's a woman who does voices for cartoons and she has the most incredible understanding

16:39of voice. And she's commenting a lot of the time on people in shows that

16:46I don't watch, but they have little excerpts of where like, I guess there's this

16:49doctor on the, it's like an ER type show.

16:52It's like a revisiting of the show ER.

16:54But she talks about how as he's matured from season to season in his role

16:59on the show, and he's mentoring how she literally talks about how his larynx and

17:04pharynx are, how he's controlling those differently as he matures.

17:08And then when he has a breakdown, how the voice moves further up into his

17:12head and what that's about.

17:14And so I was thinking about this, I'm like, you know, here's somebody that's a

17:17very unique, you know, window into all of this, but we sort of know this

17:22intuitively. Like when we're excited, like there's this kind of rising from the bottom.

17:27And when we're relaxed, everything just kind of sinks down to the diaphragmatic breathing.

17:33As a scientist who studies emotion, how do you sort of decide what, which lens

17:40to look at things through?

17:42Because a lot of the stuff I'm talking about might sound a little esoteric, but

17:44it's actually the stuff that's easiest to measure.

17:46Yeah. Presumably you can quantitatively measure like breaths per minute when somebody is looking at

17:52an awe -inspiring image versus like a trivial image.

17:55I love your reference to chakras.

17:58And, you know, the older I get, you know, I've been doing emotion science for

18:0134 years or five years.

18:04It's good to think about the other traditions.

18:06You know, we wouldn't have thought about the breath, the power of the breath, without

18:10the contemplative meditation traditions that you've impart tested and Richie Davidson and others.

18:17And lo and behold, the breath, deep exhalation activates the vagus nerve, calms us down.

18:23That activation of the vagus nerve gives people a sense of warmth in your chest,

18:28which kind of sounds like the heart chakra and all the speculation around how your

18:33soul is in your heart.

18:35Well, there's a neurophysiological correlate of that.

18:39I love the paintings of Alex Gray, the psychedelic artist.

18:42Like if you want an image of what our neurophysiology is, is it synchronizes in

18:47love, you could, it's pretty close or it's interesting, right?

18:50So it's good to find inspiration in that.

18:53One of the great things about the science of emotion, and I brought these tools

18:57into the study of awe, you know, which is we have learned a lot about

19:03how to measure emotion. You know, you can measure it with facial muscles and gaze

19:08patterns and coloration of the face and breath patterns and, you know, different measures of

19:14vagal tone and immune system activation and activation in the gut and of course, brain

19:20activation and the voice, which is one of my favorite modalities.

19:23I learned this in some sense from Darwin.

19:28Darwin's expression of emotion in man and animals is in my view, and we're just

19:33publishing a paper on this, on everything that he said about human emotion.

19:3753 emotions annotated with eight modalities of expressive behavior.

19:42I wrote it with a Darwin scholar, Frank Soloway, who knows everything about Darwin.

19:47And I choose how to study an emotion based on what's, what's happening out in

19:53our lives and the phenomena out there, right?

19:56So if you're studying awe, you should get people around big trees or in musical

20:01concerts or in museums, right?

20:05If you're, I studied embarrassment early in my career and modesty, and I'm like, I

20:10got to study young men teasing each other because we embarrass each other, you know,

20:14intentionally. Oh my goodness. We have to hear about that work again.

20:17It's become very relevant nowadays because of the, because of the, uh, I'll just call

20:23it what it is. It's not dreaded.

20:24It's the dreadful manosphere, you know, which people use very broadly, but I think now

20:29it's being, you know, allocated to the, the, the worst of the worst.

20:34But then there is this phenomenon among males where they'll ribby each other, you know,

20:39and, and there's a, there's a healthy version of males interacting too, right?

20:43You know, uh, so we'll get back to that.

20:45I base it on what's the phenomenon of interest, right?

20:48That, that speaks to humanity.

20:51And then what are our best measures that we can go after it?

20:54These days, if you want to measure awe, what's your favorite awe stimulus?

20:59First stop, and thank you for asking about measurement.

21:03Like, it's interesting, like people like, oh, you can't study awe.

21:06You know, you don't know how to measure it.

21:07It's, it's ineffable. It's mysterious.

21:09It's spiritual. We can measure awe really well.

21:13You know, the vocalization, whoa, you know, the facial expression, uh, activation part, parts of

21:20the brain are deactivated, uh, vagal tone, the goosebumps is a good, uh, part of

21:25the awe response. As we started to study awe, we did two things.

21:32And one is typical, you know, science, which is get your most cool awe videos,

21:39show them to people, you know, and I had some missteps in this science.

21:45I had a woman who was an honor student at Berkeley.

21:47who's coming back from Burning Man, and, you know, she's like, I'm going to show

21:50engineers fractal imagery. And, you know, the engineers are like, who is this woman?

21:56I mean, there is the, I've never been to Burning Man, but there's the post

22:00-Burning Man glow that people come back with that is, for understandable reasons, hard for

22:04most people to enter with them.

22:06It's like a kid coming back from summer camp.

22:08There's great visual imagery. You know, BBC Earth is awesome, and it makes people feel

22:14awesome. Slow -motion guys. I don't know if you know these guys.

22:18They film wild things in slow motion, like, you know, dropping a wine glass, and

22:24it's this spectacular photography, and just, you know, you're like, so it opens you up

22:29too. We'll put a link to that.

22:30Yeah. I love super slow -mo.

22:32Yeah. And that fits our definition, which is like, you don't understand what's happening.

22:37It's fast. It's mysterious. But what I'm really proud of, Andrew, is the work we

22:41did out in the field, right?

22:43So one of our first studies on the Berkeley campus that you frequented and got

22:49your master's degree at and headed into neuroscience was in our paleontology museum.

22:54There's a replica of a T -Rex skeleton.

22:57When I was five years old and I learned about dinosaurs, it changed my life.

23:02It was just in the L .A.

23:04Natural History Museum. I'm like, wow.

23:06So we studied people standing near the T -Rex skeleton, and they became expansive and

23:12collective. We studied people near giant eucalyptus trees.

23:16We studied people at Yosemite.

23:19You know, Yang Bai, a student in my lab, stopped hundreds of travelers from all

23:24over the world right when you see Yosemite.

23:26And she said, how do you feel about yourself right now?

23:29And they're like, I feel small and quiet, but part of something really large, right?

23:35Subsequent to that, there are scientists who are studying mosh pits at concerts and, you

23:41know, surfers and, you know, rock, I mean, it's, you know, backpackers.

23:48And, you know, we studied one of my favorite studies later with Stacey Baer, who's

23:52a veteran who ran that, who's an amazing human being, an awe pioneer.

23:57We studied people rafting down the American River, you know, veterans, just like, whoa.

24:02We've studied people in art museums, Carnegie Hall, you know.

24:06So it's, you know, one of the joys is when science, you know, just in

24:11the spirit of your questions, it's like, well, what should I really do here, right?

24:15I could stay in the lab, but it's like, no, you know, we got to

24:18go do stuff, you know, that my dream study was to, like, have a participant

24:24come in and engage a conversation.

24:26The other participant is Shaquille O 'Neal, right?

24:29And it's like 7 '2", 350 pounds.

24:32You'd be like, whoa, but couldn't do that.

24:34So it's been fun. It's been a wild ride.

24:37And so many thoughts. First one, I'm lucky I didn't rotate through your lab because

24:42I would have never become a neuroscientist, but I'm unlucky.

24:45We're glad you missed that opportunity.

24:47But I'm unlucky because it would have been so much fun to, because I, well,

24:53I loved the wet lab, as they call it, getting into these experiments would just

24:57be incredible. A couple things, the Shaquille O 'Neal thing, I think we're all moved

25:03by these, I guess they used to call them Make -A -Wish Foundation things, where

25:06a kid who sadly is dying gets some last wish.

25:11And it's a tragic circumstance, but then you get to observe these kids.

25:15And most importantly, they get to experience something that they never could have imagined happening,

25:20like a Shaquille O 'Neal walking in.

25:22I feel like that's probably happened or something.

25:24And I think what we're witnessing in those moments has to be all, like they

25:27can't believe that this human or this event, whatever it is that they wish for,

25:31is happening there. And so it's sort of layers upon layers.

25:34There's like a grief component for those of us watching.

25:36But a huge aspect of the, of just how touching it is, is the fact

25:43that like for those moments, they're not thinking about their mortality and no kid should

25:49have to think about their mortality, right?

25:51I mean, even as I talk about it, it's like, yeah, it's just, it's like,

25:55there's an overwhelming in the opposite direction, right?

25:57Like that's a particularly complicated and interesting case where you've got two things colliding, right?

26:07Because I feel like awe is so life affirming.

26:09Yeah, it is. And anyway, that's just an observation.

26:13But horizons are something that fascinated me for a long time as a vision scientist,

26:17because when we see a horizon, our visual angle widens.

26:22That's cool. We become more parasympathetic.

26:24There's a whole coming off the accelerator of the sympathetic nervous system.

26:28So we relax by virtue of coming off the, the focusing component.

26:33When we focus in through a tunnel, we, it's quite the opposite.

26:36Nice. But I feel like there's something unique to this experience of being in a

26:39tunnel, thinking about Yosemite or in a bunch of trees or height, and then the

26:44horizon opens up. Yeah. There's this transformation of visual space.

26:50And those moments, at least for me, are the moments.

26:54So I mean, I can hike along a ridgeline for a long time and be

26:56like, this is amazing. But there's something distinctly bigger in the experience of going from

27:02confinement to openness. Yeah. It could be brought to the lab.

27:06But do you think that's what's going on in, in Yosemite or the Grand Canyon?

27:10Do people who work in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, do they attenuate?

27:13They're like, oh yeah. They're like, oh yeah.

27:15Like. Another horizon. I don't know.

27:16You know, I'm working with rangers right now, and I think the big expansive forms

27:22of awe that those places provide is attenuated, but they're still finding it in subtler

27:28ways. Yeah, that's really interesting.

27:31And, you know, it's interesting.

27:33I've been privileged to know Pete Docter at Pixar for 15 years and worked on

27:38some of his films, Inside Out and Inside Out 2.

27:41Yeah, you played a big role in that.

27:43Yeah, and through this science of emotion.

27:45And I was like, you know, in one of our conversations, I was like, tell

27:48me about some techniques for producing awe in children's films, animated films.

27:54And he described first just what you said, like, you know, the film is narrow,

27:59like a certain kind of attention, you know, sort of sympathetic, fearful, checking things, and

28:05then it comes, suddenly you see the vastness of something, and it's true, it is

28:11awe -inspiring. When you think about it neuroscientifically, it's a very basic form of awe,

28:16it's shifting from small to vast in terms of vision and perception, and then it

28:21becomes metaphorical, right? It's like, God, I'm thinking about, like, I love one of the

28:26wonders of life that makes us feel awe is big ideas and epiphanies.

28:32And very often people will be like, God, I've been working so hard at this,

28:36you know, I'm working on a paper or something in technology or some part of

28:40my life. And then you suddenly realize it's part of something large, right?

28:44One of the musicians that I interviewed, Yumi Kendall, in the book, in the chapter

28:49on musical awe said, you know, she's a cellist for the Philadelphia Symphony, said, you

28:56know, I practice for five hours a day.

28:58It's hard, man. And it's small and narrow and where's my finger?

29:02And then when I'm on stage and I feel the notes go out into this

29:06space, the vastness you're talking about, I feel like I'm part of history, right?

29:11And I tear up and cry.

29:13So I think you've got to send me those papers, Andrew, because I think it's

29:19fundamental, which is from small to vast.

29:21And in fact, we did this really cool study with Virginia Sturm at UC San

29:26Francisco, brain health. Old people go out on an awe walk once a week for

29:31eight weeks, 75 years old or older, and all we asked them to do is

29:35to go from small to vast and how they looked at things.

29:38You know, look at a tree, look at a leaf, go out to the pattern

29:42of leaves. It brought them awe and less physical pain over eight weeks.

29:48And now we're finding six years later, better brain health, right?

29:51So small to vast is a big part of it.

29:53I'm struck by the awe walk.

29:56And I know this comes up in your book and elsewhere, and you've done a

29:59lot of research on this.

30:00For those listening, what would an awe walk look like?

30:05And what are some of the health benefits?

30:06You just mentioned a few that have been observed both in the short and the

30:09long term. Yeah, thank you.

30:12You know, we are a walking species.

30:16You know, it is just in our DNA to walk.

30:19We meandered from Africa to all the continents.

30:23A lot of people, Rebecca Solnit writes about this, like walking is almost sacred.

30:27It's a kind of consciousness.

30:29Like you're saying, like, whoa, I'm picking up a vaster view of what's around me.

30:36And I decided to just create this awe walk, you know, and I did it

30:41for a meditation group or a mindful magazine.

30:45You just slow down. A lot of people walk.

30:49Hundreds of, you know, tens of millions of people have regular walks in the United

30:52States. It's good for you.

30:54You know, so we just add it all.

30:57Like on your regular walk, once a week in our study, go somewhere you wouldn't

31:03ordinarily go. Go someplace that may surprise you.

31:08I walk around Berkeley a lot and it's like, well, I'm going to go past

31:11the little playground that my daughters played at when they were young and just feel

31:15that, you know, Cordonisi's Park.

31:18Yeah, with the rock slide and the tunnel.

31:21Exactly. I love that place.

31:22You're the Rose Garden. And there's a secret, should we give this away?

31:25Yeah. There's a secret hiking trail through, it's actually through a private property's backyard and

31:33they allow you to go through if you are quiet and you pick up your

31:36trash and there's an incredible waterfall in place to stand at the top.

31:41There's a beam there. You've been there, I'm sure.

31:44Yeah, I know. We can look out over this, what is kind of like a

31:46trench of tree. It's a total transformation of one space to the next.

31:52It is. If you look for it properly, I'm sure now it's on the internet,

31:55it's in kind of swinging gates, not locked.

32:00So hard to find. And there's a little monastery maybe nearby.

32:03And you might see me, a couple years ago you would have seen me and

32:07my dog, but you might see me eating a slice of pizza from the cheese

32:10board sitting on that log.

32:11I spent a lot of time there.

32:13I'm getting goosebumps, Henry. That is just pure Berkeley.

32:16Thank you. So, yeah, so in this study, I'll walk, go on your walk, find

32:22a place that's going to be a little surprising where it may make you feel

32:25a little bit of childlike wonder.

32:27And it's interesting, no one's asked me this question, you know, your observation about small

32:32to vast. And we just said, slow down, deepen your breathing, sync it up with

32:38your walking, which you've studied empirically, the breath.

32:42Yeah. Yeah. and then go from small to vast you know look at clouds look

32:49at the whole pattern of clouds just slow it down look at trees look at

32:53the light on the trees and look at points of light and then patterns of

32:57light look at you know I love walking past playgrounds it's one of my favorite

33:01sources of awe listen to one laugh and then listen to the whole symphony of

33:06laughter of kids right that's all and they walk through they do that for half

33:12an hour and what we find in that study is is they become more vast

33:16in their consciousness they're more aware in the photographs that they provided of what's around

33:21them they feel more kindness over the eight weeks they feel more awe over an

33:28eight -week period it rises and then the the finding that was you know important

33:33for people who are elderly is less physical pain you know your body starts to

33:38ache when you're 75 you know or earlier and awe I think through the inflammation

33:44process you know and reducing it caused less pain you know this dovetails with other

33:50health benefits awe is good for reduced inflammation elevated vagal tone reduced long COVID symptoms

33:59we have people with long COVID just a minute of awe a day reduced long

34:05COVID symptoms it's good news right and and there's so much science on it that

34:10I just now I think medical doctors are starting to think like I'm going to

34:14prescribe nature I'll prescribe music through all right as a mechanism I have a lot

34:21of thoughts about this going from small to large yeah I'd love to hear them

34:25but before I do I have another question I have another question I think for

34:31a lot of people um including myself we assume that awe is this kind of

34:38forgetting of ourself yeah like getting outside of ourselves but I'm starting to think based

34:44on the way you're describing it that it's about being tethered to the larger picture

34:49yeah that it's not a yes it's getting out of our heads quote -unquote but

34:54it's actually very much an embodied experience it's very it's almost like full body and

35:00so now I'll answer your question this is usually where people start putting in the

35:05comments like you talk too much let your guests talk but I'm trying folks he

35:09asked me twice so you ask me a question I'm gonna answer it anyone that

35:12knows me you know if I okay so I've thought about this this relationship between

35:16visual aperture and a time perception for a long time this is my my deepest

35:22obsession and it gets a little bit into the book I'm writing but it but

35:26it it's probably reserved for after there's some experiments and and I um to the

35:32fear of my podcast crew I actually am considering going back into the lab to

35:36do this experiment so we know what do we know for certain we know for

35:41certain that when your visual aperture is small like looking through a soda straw view

35:44or watch um maker type aperture or um you're in a let's just say it

35:51could be a pleasant or unpleasant text communication it's going back and forth that your

35:55perception of time is different you're fine slicing those dot dot dots coming through yeah

36:01it's just like it feels like an eternity yeah and it's bi -directional with your

36:05let's just call it level of alertness it doesn't even have to be stress but

36:08sympathetic nervous system right so if I'm in line at the store and and I

36:13have some place to be my visual aperture shrinks and then it feels like the

36:17person in front of me is taking forever yeah because you're in these little when

36:21I'm relaxed it feels like I'm slicing time differently okay when we see a horizon

36:26and and our aperture opens up as I mentioned then we relax but we also

36:30are taking fewer time snapshots so people might think oh fewer you're in slow motion

36:37because the word no you're you're it's the opposite right slow motion is high frame

36:41rate but this thing about video where you can catch slow motion you need a

36:44high frame rate this is why when people experience uh like a car crash they'll

36:48often say that things felt like they were slowing down more snapshots that's cool so

36:52when I think about this relationship between visual aperture and time and it also exists

36:58in the auditory domain so if I'm listening to a specific conversation at a party

37:02I'm fine slicing my perception of auditory space our friend Irv Hafter taught me this

37:08when I listen to everything and I take it in as a whole it's it's

37:12a more relaxed experience but okay cool so a long time ago I was because

37:19I was experiencing stress I started reading about meditation types and different things and I

37:24came up with this meditation it's but it's not meditation at all and some of

37:29my listeners will be familiar with it I decided to call it for lack of

37:32a better term space -time bridging the meditation is very simple you um close your

37:37eyes and you do three breaths thinking about your skin inward so interoception you open

37:42your eyes and you look at your hand you take three breaths but you're creating

37:46a visual tether between you and your hand then you look some distance maybe eight

37:50or ten feet away you do the same then you find a horizon and then

37:53you think about the sort of pale blue dot phenomenon like you're just on a

37:56planet it's floating in space and like every single one of these things is a

38:00form of meditation or a meme or or whatever and then you get right back

38:03to yourself and so what the idea here is that it helped me a lot

38:08because I noticed that meditations where I was come focused inward made me more focused

38:12inward. Going for a run, I could get outside my head, but it, and I

38:15started to play with the idea that maybe it's not about having a small aperture

38:20or a big aperture per se, but it's the, like every great thing in biology

38:25or psychology, it's the process.

38:27It's not an event. It's the process of going from one aperture to the next.

38:30And that's kind of what life is about.

38:32Yeah, absolutely. Like when this too shall pass is really about taking a broader time

38:37snapshot, like eventually this thing, which is visual.

38:41And so there's a long answer to your question, but this is why it's so

38:46important for me to see a horizon if I can in the morning.

38:49But it's also very important to go indoors and just like focus on what I'm

38:52working on. Like there is no place or event in a day or in life

38:58that's actually the right way to live.

39:00Like you can go to Big Sur.

39:02And if you're lucky enough to go to Esalen, like, you're like, this is it,

39:05but it's only it because you came from your office in my opinion.

39:08And then you go back again.

39:10Yeah. You figure this out.

39:13Like you, the title of this paper, which you're the senior author is a balanced

39:18mind. All fosters equanimity via temporal distancing.

39:22Yeah. So it's, so it's about time, not about space.

39:25It is. That's fascinating. So that's, that's how I think about this.

39:28Now, maybe you can tell us about this paper because I'm getting embarrassed that I've

39:31been going way too long.

39:32This is why we're in conversation, Andrew, which is, you know, you've studied the visual

39:36system and, and we need more of that knowledge in the science of awe.

39:40And I will just make one parenthetical note, which is I was interviewing Matias Tarnopowski,

39:46who was at Berkeley and then went to the Philadelphia Symphony and was a music

39:50director there. And he said, I was like, and he was, he studies the great,

39:55and he's a conductor of symphonies.

39:57And I was like, what's the, music's hard to understand scientifically.

40:02It is complicated. I was like, what's it?

40:04Why awe and music? Why do we cry?

40:06Why do we get goosebumps?

40:08Why do we, I mean, profound.

40:10And he's like, time. It's all about what it does to our sense of time.

40:14And so I think there's a hypothesis there to explore.

40:18What awe does to the self, and I'm putting together a couple of your comments,

40:22is, and Jane Goodall got it most right.

40:27And, and it's, you know, it's so great to study things with science.

40:31And then you see someone you really revere say something.

40:36And she was, she felt that chimpanzees feel awe.

40:39I do too. Believe that.

40:41So it's a controversial issue.

40:45Chimps show, and Franz Duval alerted me to this, who recently passed away.

40:50And I just want to pay reverence to him or homage to him, the great

40:54primatologist. So he said, you got to look at Jane Goodall and writing about chimps.

40:59And the waterfall display they show when they are around vast nature.

41:04They sit quietly, like around rivers, like that waterfall in Berkeley.

41:09They, they look at things, they get goosebumps, they touch things like we would out

41:14in nature. They rock. And they, Jane Goodall said, why wouldn't they feel awe?

41:21Or the beginnings of spirituality, which is really being amazed at things outside of the

41:29self. So with awe, we, we have a sense of self interception and the like,

41:33and then we connect to vast things out there.

41:37And that's what our research documented as kind of a central mechanism of awe or

41:42transformation is like, when you're at Yosemite, or when you are standing next to that

41:48T -Rex skeleton, or when you've, you know, when you've thought about the passage of

41:54time that happens with life, right?

41:57And there are new meditations around that.

41:59You're like, wow, I am part of something vast.

42:02I'm part of evolution. I'm part of nature.

42:05I'm part of an ecosystem.

42:08And it changes your whole mind, right?

42:12It changes the neurophysiology of the mind, default mode network starts to quiet down, activates

42:18vagal tone, and you do feel like you're tethered, as you said, to like music

42:24or a culture or a political movement or the team you love, right?

42:30And it's transcendent. And if you look at where we are today, we need more

42:35of that. You know, we need to, to get our young people to be connecting

42:39to big things. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15

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44:04I didn't expect that we would land here, at least not so early in the

44:07conversation, but there, you know, we've had Christoph Koch on this podcast talking about consciousness,

44:15you know, incredible neuroscientist and really thinker.

44:18I mean, I've watched his career evolve over the years and he's continued to evolve

44:22his concepts of how to think about consciousness and, you know, we'll hear nowadays about,

44:29oh, like maybe consciousness is outside the brain.

44:31And I think if nothing else, our brains are important components in it.

44:36Maybe not. I don't know.

44:37I don't want to do the experiment on myself to find out.

44:39Yeah. Like I was discerbrated or something, which basically means having your cortex removed, folks.

44:44Sorry for the nerd speak.

44:45But the idea is connecting through time, like in our own lives is a very

44:50unique form of awe. So like if I hear a song and it reminds me

44:56of when I was like 15 and then all of a sudden all the, as

44:59I call it, like the magic library come, that's how the brain works, right?

45:02It's like, it's like a Harry Potter.

45:04Like you take out a book, you see a subject and then all of a

45:06sudden the library, the books around it change.

45:08And so I'm thinking about the time we did this and the time we did

45:11that. And everyone has these notions, but there's very much linked to them.

45:15That's one form of linking up through time.

45:18Well put. And then there's this other one where you feel something with someone else.

45:24You know, you're connected in that moment, but there's this idea, forgive me for getting

45:30squishy on here, but there's this idea that maybe your past, present, and future is

45:36connected to their past and present and future.

45:38And then if you let yourself go there, no drugs required, if you let yourself

45:43go there, you're like, oh, we're part of this together.

45:46And we're sort of moving more now as a conscious fleet than as individuals.

45:53I think that's a very real experience, even for people that are like very resistant

45:58to kind of like even the language of collective consciousness and things like that.

46:02And I think concerts are where we generally feel that because it requires a sort

46:07of shared perceptual experience or emotional experience.

46:11And so when you say getting young people connected that way, it's very different than

46:15like node to node. It's sort of like, it's an openness that comes.

46:19First, you have to connect to your past, present, and future.

46:22And then you're kind of open to it.

46:23I feel like then that window opens.

46:26And then if there's one person there or a thousand people standing there, like it's

46:31on. Yeah. But if not, and you're just in your experience, you're the person at

46:37the party wondering whether or not you have something between your teeth, which is the

46:42lamest way to be at a party, but we've all been there, right?

46:45Anyway, I'm getting a little outside the box here, but what are your thoughts?

46:48No, I love it. What are your thoughts about individual awe experiences, like on the

46:52awe walk versus a couple some of whom you've never met?

47:00I mean, you've highlighted, you know, this, this temporal, this dynamic that you're pointing to

47:06with respect to awe and the experience of awe.

47:10And we're so limited in how we measure experience.

47:12And I, I think you're right.

47:14I think that, you know, your first sense of like one of the most awesome

47:18qualities of awe is connecting in your mind through the layers of consciousness and experience

47:26that shifts out of the micro to this expansive narrative about your mind, right?

47:31And so I grew up around the UCLA campus because my mom got her PhD

47:35there at UCLA, at UCLA in the late sixties and there were eucalyptus trees.

47:41And then I went to Northern California where there were not as many eucalyptus trees.

47:45And I, first day I was at UC Santa Barbara as an undergrad, I smelled

47:49the eucalyptus and I, it was awe, it was just like, ah, all of these

47:53experiences through the olfactory process.

47:56Yeah, I was awestruck by that smell, right?

47:58And that's through the connecting through time.

48:00I am very persuaded by the new literature on brain synchronization that we are.

48:08And I talk about this a bit in awe and there's just new science coming

48:11out. We're always syncing up with other people.

48:14You know, when a nine month old listens to music, they are syncing up to

48:19the sounds and rhythms of their culture's music.

48:21And they're synced up physiologically with whomever is in their midst.

48:26When we go to a concert or we watch a sporting event, you know, if

48:29you're, if you like sports, your heart rate is syncing up, your brains are synchronizing.

48:34It's, and, and that in some sense is the materialistic account of collective consciousness.

48:40We're all sharing brain patterns and awareness.

48:44And I think that it's, it's part of some of our deepest forms of awe,

48:50you know, and music. Now the current science of music is like, it is very

48:56hard to get people to think collectively in the same way.

49:00You know, when you teach a classroom, it's impossible, but music does it within milliseconds,

49:04right? Right. When you, when you, You talk to people who've been to Taylor Swift

49:08shows who are Swifties, it's serious, right?

49:14They are instantly bonded. United in like a moral cause almost or an identity cause.

49:22So that's profound. That's very hard work to do.

49:25And when Jonathan Haidt and I wrote about awe early in our careers, you know,

49:33we were like, we need these emotions to make us be part of collectives because

49:39we are a very collective species.

49:42It's one of our signature strengths is to fold into groups and to cooperate and

49:46share. It's hard work. It's vulnerable to exploitation.

49:50And awe is one of the fastest pathways through what you're talking about, through physical

49:57dancing together, chanting together, sporting events together, what Emil Durkheim called collective effervescence, right?

50:04Music, just syncing up with each other, feeling like we're part of this vast group,

50:12sharing a sense of humanity, a sense that we all suffer in the same way

50:17or exalt in the same way.

50:19And it's profound, you know, I don't think we'll ever get this with science, but

50:23I love, you know, yeah, I've had all these conversations about awe and musical awe.

50:30I'm like, when's a time, and I could ask you this question, when being at

50:37a concert has changed your life?

50:38Oh, I mean, there's some of the most important, not just memorable, but important experiences

50:43of my entire life. So tell me about one or two.

50:45My sister listened to the Grateful Dead and Cat Stevens and all that kind of

50:48stuff. And from the first time I heard, people will immediately think bullet belts and

50:55mohawks, but I was a punk rock kid.

50:57I mean, I'll never forget, like, my friend who's now well -known in the skateboard

51:02community, Jim Thiebaud. I know Jim.

51:04You know Jim? Yeah. He's a close friend of mine.

51:06I take saunas with Jim.

51:07Do you? Yeah. I texted with him this morning.

51:09Say hi. We text each other every morning.

51:11The great Jim Thiebaud. He basically runs skateboarding.

51:13He's the dean of skateboarding, the quiet dean of skateboarding.

51:15And good friends with Tommy Guerrero.

51:16Good friends with Tommy Guerrero.

51:18Jim gave me my first cup of black coffee.

51:21He was the person who inspired me to start journaling when I was 14.

51:27I was put on out of sympathy onto Thunder Trucks.

51:31And he, at the time, he was around the factory, which at that time was

51:34over in Third Street, where all the Hunter's Point on Yosemite.

51:39But anyway, Jim gave me a tape, because back then it was tapes, of a

51:46band called Crimp Shrine, which is from Berkeley.

51:49And they were on Lookout Records, which eventually were first releases of Green Day.

51:53I wasn't so much, forgive me, I like those guys.

51:56I know some of them.

51:57But I heard that tape.

52:00I was like, this is amazing.

52:02Like, this is amazing. Like, I've never heard anything quite like it.

52:05It was super raw. It was – and then I was like, I need more

52:11of this. It was like a drug.

52:13I was like, I need more of this, whatever this is.

52:16And so he gave me a stiff little fingers tape.

52:18And that was just it.

52:19And then it was stiff little fingers, Operation Ivy, Rancid.

52:23I mean, I could easily, like, do a whole – literally a thesis on that

52:28whole kind of era and genre of punk rock.

52:31I'm a huge Joe Strummer fan.

52:32Yeah. Heck, yeah. Mescaleros and biggest Rancid fan there ever was.

52:36I'm blessed to be good friends with Tim Armstrong these days.

52:39But I only met him later in life.

52:40And that still freaks me out, because we're close friends.

52:44But whenever I see him, it's still – I'm like, that's Tim Armstrong, because there's

52:48the – talk about time travel.

52:50That's the 14-, 15 -year -old version of me.

52:52Those guys are a bit older.

52:54And they were like gods in the Bay Area for our scene.

52:57You know, and then when they made it, you know, and they're just still so

52:59good. Yeah. The show that changed everything for me was – this would be somewhere

53:03between 93 and 94. A little club.

53:08It was either called The Stage House or The Stagecoach in Santa Barbara.

53:11That was near the railroad tracks downtown.

53:13And it was Rancid playing with Sick of It All, which was an East Coast

53:18hardcore band, which, you know, and my now good friend Toby Moores was there.

53:23And I remember going there and being kind of scared.

53:27I mean, I'm kind of like moving my way around.

53:29It was just – like those guys were older.

53:32It was – like had a kind of violent feel.

53:35Yeah, yeah. They were from Albany and West Oakland.

53:37Yeah. Some of – there was an edge there, and I remember thinking, this is

53:42exciting. I feel very much a part of this.

53:45I love the music. Yeah.

53:46I know every lyric, and I'm a little bit frightened, and I love it.

53:50And I think it was just – you know, I just got the adrenaline back.

53:54And there's a little bit of – you don't know what is going to happen,

53:58and it feels a little dangerous, but it's mostly benevolent.

54:04And it's an irreplaceable feeling.

54:06And I think about it sometimes – I think about it a lot of the

54:09time. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, thank you.

54:12And I – you know, when I was writing this book on awe, some forms

54:17of awe, you know, there are eight wonders that give us awe.

54:19You know, some are – you kind of understand them.

54:22Nature is pretty straightforward. Spirituality, meditation, you know.

54:27And music and your description of it exactly captures.

54:32And music and your description of it exactly – you know, it's a very important

54:33thing. how rich it is and complicated, which is there is something about that sound

54:39and the acoustic patterns that come through your eardrums and head into your auditory cortex

54:45and you give it meaning and suddenly you're remembering things and bonding with people and

54:50insta -friends, like you said, for life, you know, brothers and sisters almost, and you're

54:56like, this is what life's about.

54:58And Susan Langer, a philosopher, really got it right.

55:03She's like, music is this tonal language of emotion and identity.

55:09And awe in music, very fitting with our conversation, is when those sounds come into

55:15you, move you, and connect you to something that is what you care about in

55:20life. You know, I remember I grew up, I was very lucky to grow up

55:26in Laurel Canyon in the late 60s and there was more music there than I,

55:31almost anywhere in human history.

55:33You know, from, you know, the mamas and papas and Frank Zappa.

55:37Jim Morrison was out here.

55:39Jim Morrison was living there and the doors and the, you know, Bob Dylan was

55:42passing through and the bird.

55:43It was a joke, you know.

55:44It was everywhere. That's wild.

55:46Just to think about how much incredible music was being created.

55:50Oh, man. You know, the Beach Boys were, you know.

55:53I mean, weren't Fleetwood Mac back in Topanga?

55:57Yeah. I mean, it was like, and I was eight and nine and just to,

56:01you know, to grow up on Bob Dylan.

56:03And when I saw about the recent film with Timothee Chalamet, I started crying.

56:07You know, I was just like, this is life, you know.

56:10So, yeah, and so that's why we study awe, you know.

56:15And, you know, music is one of our great technologies.

56:19There's now research showing it's good for chronic pain.

56:22I think it's a frontier in health care and, you know, just giving people contemplative,

56:28meditative approaches to music and awe is part of the answer.

56:33And you and I shared yet another thing, Andrew.

56:37You know, when I grew up in the foothills of the Sears as a teenager,

56:43Ted Nugent and, you know, his poor, you know, area, Ted Nugent, ACDC, and that's

56:48all fine. And when I first heard the Sex Pistols in, I was lucky to

56:55be in England when Nevermind the Bollocks came out and I was in a working

56:59class fighting town and I heard that, I was like, that's it.

57:05And then that led me to Iggy Pop, who's one of my moral heroes.

57:08So, you know. Amazing, who's really into Qigong apparently.

57:11I heard him like years ago on the radio and someone was asking him, like,

57:16how does he stay in such good shape?

57:17And he's just tons of Qigong breathing.

57:20Wild, wild, wild. You know, it's interesting because a lot of music has lyrics and

57:24a lot doesn't. But there's something that feels kind of divorced from language about the

57:31experience that we're talking about, even though there's lyrics tied in there.

57:34And what brings that to mind is there's a really good book, one that I

57:37like anyway, called A Fighter's Heart by a guy named Sam Sheridan.

57:42His wife actually wrote that movie Monster with Charlize Theron, I think is the actress

57:48that played her. And I don't know, Sam, but there's this description of all these

57:53different martial arts forms and he explores them all.

57:55And there's this great line in there, because I've done a little bit of boxing

57:59and sparred a bit. I don't recommend it.

58:02As a neuroscientist, how can I recommend it?

58:04Yeah, what were you doing?

58:05I was actually in my 30s, but anyway, I was working some stuff out.

58:10But do not recommend the sport.

58:13Yeah, the training, yeah, but you don't want to get hit in the head.

58:16Not good for your brain whatsoever.

58:18But he talks about how fighting with someone, sparring, or fighting with someone is, he

58:24said it's like a, it's one of the most bonding experiences that you'll ever have.

58:29Yeah. Because you're in this primitive non -language state.

58:33Yeah. I mean, he actually likens it to a one -night stand.

58:35He says something like, oh, you know, you're sharing bodily fluids with somebody that you

58:38barely know, but you feel connected, you know?

58:41So I don't know if that's the best.

58:43It's certainly not the most politically correct way to put it.

58:45But I understand what he's talking about, right?

58:47Definitely. You're in this moment of you're both vulnerable.

58:51Yeah. In the case of the fighting, you're both vulnerable.

58:55You're trying to hurt each other.

58:58You're also obeying some rules.

59:00Yeah. Right? It's not that anything goes.

59:01And he talks about how it transcends language.

59:05Yeah. And that creates a forever bond.

59:08And it's true. Yeah. Right?

59:10I didn't do a ton of sparring, but you have a respect.

59:12Yep. You went through something hard together.

59:15Even if it's only three three -minute rounds.

59:18Like, that's it. It's real.

59:21But it's separate from language.

59:23And earlier we were talking about the experience of emotion as this kind of triad

59:29of the feeling, the motor component to it, and language.

59:34But I do think that maybe the language piece can go.

59:37I'm with you in some sense.

59:39Darwin wrote about the motor components, got a lot of it right.

59:42William James was about the body, you know, and the physiology.

59:45And, you know, language is what we rely on as social scientists.

59:49But I think it's, as William James said, when he tried to describe his experience

59:55of transcendence, when he took laughing gas and it led him down the path to

59:59understand spirituality. But, you know, it's important.

1:00:01Words are tattered fragments. They barely touch the real thing.

1:00:07Yeah, and I just want to dwell for a moment, you know, part of awe,

1:00:12and I learned this like talking to veterans, you know, and I did work with

1:00:16Stacey Bearer, and we did this Sierra Club research getting veterans out on the rivers,

1:00:20and he's one of my heroes in the book of getting tens of thousands of

1:00:25veterans to find their awe in nature.

1:00:27You know, and these are guys who have lost limbs, and they're rock climbing, you

1:00:31know, and it's just like there's a lot of awe when you're right at the

1:00:35edge of life, and there's violence, and there's a lot of horror, carnage, etc., but

1:00:40there's awe, and I love your idea, and I think any teacher of the martial

1:00:47arts would say that's the point, is that we can transcend death or violence by

1:00:54martial arts, by performing them and putting them into a contemplative form for the body.

1:01:03One of my favorite movies, if not my favorite movie, is Raging Bull, man, and

1:01:09Martin Scorsese. Like, Jake LaMotta and Sugar Ray have these epic battles, and they look

1:01:16at each other, you know, in one of the great scenes, and they're just like,

1:01:20we're united. This is, we're way beyond the fight, you know.

1:01:25I think you're right. I think it's part of this transcendent moment of people crashing

1:01:33into each other. Mosh pits.

1:01:35Yeah. They are one of my favorite objects of study in awe, and mosh pits

1:01:39have a law, a set of laws to them.

1:01:43Yeah, people have studied, like, the, sort of the physics of it.

1:01:46Yeah, no, it's like, and you think you're crashing, and you are.

1:01:50You're bruising yourself, you know, but there's something transcendent there about what we find.

1:01:55I could be wrong, but I think Raging Bull, I think the soundtrack was Clash

1:01:59-inspired. Was it really? There's something about it in the documentary, which I highly recommend,

1:02:03called The Future is Unwritten, which is the Joe Strummer thing, where some, there's some

1:02:08link up between The Clash.

1:02:10I think Scorsese says, you know, The Clash inspired the soundtrack to Raging Bull or

1:02:14something like that. Really? Anyway, he's a big Clash fan, so, yeah.

1:02:18All right, Andrew, I get to ask you one more question.

1:02:19Yeah, yeah. So why is Joe Strummer a person of moral beauty to you?

1:02:23One of the sources of awe is we're amazed by people's courage and strength and

1:02:29kindness and justice, so why Joe Strummer?

1:02:32Oof, man. All right, I'm going to try and keep this brief.

1:02:35Um... I mean, just to give you a sense of how, what an impact he's

1:02:40had on me. I mean, I've always worn these button -down black shirts, even before

1:02:43I was public -facing, um, because I saw him do a show, um, a Mescalero

1:02:51show. I wasn't there, but he, and by the way, Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros,

1:02:55I actually think is better than The Clash.

1:02:57Yeah. Clash was a short run.

1:02:59It was only five years.

1:03:00Yeah. Only five years, pretty much, and then they're done.

1:03:03So it was one -on -oneers, Clash, and then, and then he came back with

1:03:05The Mescaleros and just incredible, I mean, they're masterpieces.

1:03:09Yeah. Produced in part by my friend Tim Armstrong.

1:03:12He won Hellcat Records. He went to a small label.

1:03:14Um, he also sang songs with Johnny Cash for, with Rick Rubin.

1:03:18I actually know the story of that, because I'm friends with Rick, and I insisted

1:03:21on him telling me the story.

1:03:21So sometime I can tell you that, but I mean, masterpieces late in life.

1:03:25And there was a show that, that Strummer played where he was wearing his black

1:03:30button down, soaking in sweat, like soaked in sweat.

1:03:35And he just wouldn't take the thing off.

1:03:37I think he might've rolled up like one cuff.

1:03:38Yeah. And I was like, that's punk as fuck.

1:03:41I was like, that guy is so rad.

1:03:42And he was in, and he died at 50 where the, I'm 50 now died

1:03:45at 50. I go see the mural of him right off.

1:03:47Um, it's right off Tompkins Square Park, uh, in Alphabet City.

1:03:52Every time I'm in New York, just go like, see it.

1:03:54Right on. The Aviator says future is unwritten.

1:03:56You can go there, pay your respects.

1:03:57I've talked to Rick about this a lot.

1:03:59Like, what was it about him?

1:04:00Yeah. Because they were close friends.

1:04:02I never met Strummer. But I think there's three reasons.

1:04:06One is, um, he had that Bob Dylan like ability to write lyrics that you're

1:04:12not, especially with Mescaleros, where you're not really sure what the song's about, but it

1:04:16makes sense. Not just because it's beautiful, but you feel like he's tapping into something

1:04:21more fundamental than what the lyrics are actually saying.

1:04:24Beyond language. Yeah. Like a great song, um, for instance, would be like on the

1:04:30road to rock and roll.

1:04:31Like it, that could be about being on tour or something, but it's, it transcends

1:04:34something obvious. Nice. The other thing is, is the way he, he, uh, used his

1:04:40breath was, um, like there was a, his intonation is like unparalleled.

1:04:47Yeah. And then Rick was the one who really helped me understand.

1:04:51Cause during the summer I go hang out with Rick whenever I can and, uh,

1:04:56winter too. Um, and we watched documentaries and clean clash documentaries.

1:05:00And I asked him, I was like, what was it?

1:05:02Like, why does he have this thing?

1:05:04Cause he said these incredible things, you know, he would say things like, you know,

1:05:07you gotta bring humanity back into the center.

1:05:10And those are really beautiful quotes, but like a lot of people will give beautiful

1:05:13quotes. And Rick in very Rick Rubin style said, everything he said, he brought his

1:05:21whole life experience into those statements.

1:05:25And I was like, just the statements, like the quotes, you know, like the, you

1:05:28know, we got to. Bring the humanity back into the world.

1:05:30And he goes, no, everything he said.

1:05:32It was like you got the sense that he was bringing all of himself to

1:05:36it, even if he was being kind of quiet.

1:05:38That's cool. And I go, okay, so this is clearly on a plane of understanding

1:05:42that I can't put language to, right?

1:05:44What does that even mean?

1:05:45That's like half the things Rick says.

1:05:47It's like a riddle mixed up in a poem, you know, put out there as

1:05:52a principle. And you're just like, well, what the hell does that mean?

1:05:55But it feels true. And I think that, you know, and Rick's superpower is that

1:06:01Rick knows what a true feeling feels like.

1:06:06And he knows what a false feeling feels like.

1:06:09And he's only interested in truths, period.

1:06:13And that's the challenge of the science that I'm part of is exactly that.

1:06:17It's like there are all these layers of meaning and representation.

1:06:20And, you know, and we try to figure out true moments of awe with all

1:06:25of our measures. And it is this, like, it's all coming together as a package

1:06:29that tells us it's happened.

1:06:31So we can think about things that promote awe, the awe walk, going small to

1:06:36large aperture, maybe back again.

1:06:38Yeah. Like, I guess we shouldn't assume that it's unidirectional.

1:06:41You know, coming back into our home after something big is, there's nothing like that,

1:06:46right? The dog, the kids.

1:06:48Yeah. The spouse, the whatever, you know, like those little things, the plants, you know,

1:06:53that, you know. So it runs both ways.

1:06:56It's no fun, but we should probably talk about some of the inhibitors of awe.

1:07:01Because as I step back from what we're talking about today, and I think, okay,

1:07:03language, it can be part of it, but it can also, in molecular biology or

1:07:10genetics, we call it a dominant negative.

1:07:12It's like a gene that basically suppresses a set of functions.

1:07:15A ton of stuff, yeah.

1:07:16There's a joke around molecular labs and neuroscience labs that you'd be like, that person's

1:07:20a dominant negative, you know.

1:07:22I now have a new phrase I can use.

1:07:24Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to be called a dominant negative.

1:07:27I call people that in my head a lot online.

1:07:29I go, man, that person's a dominant negative.

1:07:31They're not contributing to the greater good.

1:07:32They're just like, so there's, you know, language can be that or be neutral, be

1:07:39positive, but it can definitely be that.

1:07:40And then there's something about being over -identified with self.

1:07:45You know, so on the recommendation of Tim Armstrong, someone you wouldn't associate with The

1:07:52Grateful Dead, he was like, you got to listen to The Grateful Dead.

1:07:55And I was like, what?

1:07:56This Tim, the Tim Armstrong, Transplants, Rancid, Operation Ivy, telling me I should listen to

1:08:02The Grateful Dead. He's a huge music fan of all sorts of things.

1:08:06I said, why? And he said, he said, they're punk rockers.

1:08:13And I said, what are you talking about?

1:08:15And he said, he said, yeah, they, they played a different show every night.

1:08:21That's how they're, I'm not going to keep doing his, I can do a pretty

1:08:23decent Tim. But apparently they're the, the people that followed them, that was a big

1:08:30part of it. It was all, all, all new, right?

1:08:33Every show was unique. Started getting really into listening to The Grateful Dead in the

1:08:36last couple of years. And then I started listening to documentaries, biographies of them.

1:08:41And there's this amazing moment in one of them, I can't remember which, where somebody

1:08:45says, what killed it? What killed the collective of music?

1:08:51Like that, that feeling. And the answer someone gave was cocaine.

1:08:57And then the question was, why cocaine?

1:09:00Yep. And someone said, because cocaine's all about me.

1:09:05It's the me drug. Yeah.

1:09:08So I was like, whoa, I'm a neuroscientist, so I can tack that to, you're

1:09:11talking about dopamine and adrenaline.

1:09:15And it's when dopamine and adrenaline are elevated, that's a very, I mean, amphetamines, especially,

1:09:22but it's, it becomes a me thing.

1:09:24Yeah. That's every idea that's mine is the thing that needs to happen.

1:09:29It's the important thing. If not out there, it needs to happen.

1:09:32Like that's the only thing that matters.

1:09:33Very different than cannabis, very different than psychedelics, very different than just the sober experience,

1:09:38where it's kind of a downer, but then the non -intoxicated experience of just being

1:09:43with the music, no substances.

1:09:46So I'd love your thoughts on how certain chemical states and, but more broadly, how

1:09:52meanness, self -interested states are a dominant negative for awe.

1:09:57That was the best entrance into that question I've ever encountered.

1:10:01You know, it's amazing, Andrew, you know, I grew up for three years, formative years

1:10:08in Laurel Canyon, 68 to 70.

1:10:11And then we moved to the foothills of the Sierras in Northern California.

1:10:14And it was peak Laurel Canyon, Joni Mitchell and the birds and the beach boys.

1:10:19And, you know, it was just - Jealous.

1:10:20Yeah. Envious in a positive way.

1:10:22When my brother passed away and he was my brother of awe, you know, 14

1:10:27months younger and I was in this reflective period, I started reading a lot about

1:10:30Laurel Canyon and they made the same point, which is kind of things shifted after

1:10:36we, you know, in the early 70s and the historian said it's cocaine, that it

1:10:42moved from, you know, marijuana and mushrooms and psychedelics a bit, but really, you know,

1:10:50people playing music, you know, Joni Mitchell or Graham Nash or whomever it is.

1:10:54And then suddenly cocaine comes.

1:10:56And - the whole spirit changed.

1:10:58Yeah, I think the great enemy of awe is meanness, is what Ralph Waldo Emerson,

1:11:05who was one of our great writers of awe, you know, he has this moment

1:11:09out in nature, cold day in Massachusetts, sees this forest and, you know, he's like

1:11:14standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by there and uplifted into infinite space.

1:11:21There's that uplift that you described earlier of awe.

1:11:24All mean egotism vanishes. And that's awe, you know, awe quiets the self.

1:11:35And when you look at where we are, you know, Gene Twenge, you know, longitudinal

1:11:40data, we're more self -focused.

1:11:43You know, we're taking a quarter of the pictures that we take are of the

1:11:46self. It's preposterous. It's pretty crazy.

1:11:49It's half of the photos we take are of the self or the self with

1:11:53another person or another thing.

1:11:55It's perverse, you know. The world has become more narcissistic.

1:12:00We're led by narcissists. It's been, you know, it's just taken as a default.

1:12:05And it's not a default.

1:12:07It's a corruption of our minds.

1:12:09Because the mind, as you described earlier, is very good at looking at other people,

1:12:15at making eye contact, at seeing their beauty, at hearing their words, at looking at

1:12:19a collective, discerning patterns of nature, collectives.

1:12:23And all of that works against awe, right?

1:12:27That, you know, if I am focused on myself, I'll feel less awe.

1:12:34If I am worried about my striving in society or my bottom line in my

1:12:39bank account, you know, or thinking about money, it countervails awe.

1:12:44So, yeah, I think, you know, that's why awe is important for our times.

1:12:48We are in this, for various reasons, this period of too much self -focus.

1:12:54It's costing young people. It makes them anxious, you know.

1:12:57And they got to go dance.

1:13:00They got to hear some music.

1:13:01They got to share stuff and go backpacking or whatever it is, you know, and

1:13:06just to get out of the self.

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1:14:19The example you gave of sports earlier, I think, is an important one only because

1:14:24I think some people, not me, but some people will, like, I don't really want

1:14:29to go camping or backpacking.

1:14:31I do. I spend as much time in Yosemite as I can.

1:14:33The dancing concert, you know, maybe that's not for them.

1:14:36I do think I'm not a big professional sports fan.

1:14:39I like a few things, but it is kind of interesting to put this lens

1:14:44on, like, when I see a game, one of our members of our podcast team

1:14:49that's not here today is, like, just obsessively excited about professional football and Seattle Seahawks.

1:14:56So this was a big year for him.

1:14:57And I have to believe that when he goes to see his favorite team play

1:15:01in the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl, that it's not just about his

1:15:05relationship to the team. It's about being a kid and everyone else there in a

1:15:10Seahawks jersey is, like, they must feel a connection.

1:15:16Totally. Because they, presumably, the Superfans know that the other Superfans know the history.

1:15:20They know how important this is.

1:15:22They know all the trials and tribulations of the team and on and on.

1:15:25And so it's, gosh, it's so different.

1:15:29I'm just realizing, like, it's the furthest thing from, like, doing a PhD in the

1:15:33sciences. Folks, doing a PhD in the sciences is a lot of fun.

1:15:37It's a hell of a lot of work.

1:15:39And there's nothing else quite like it.

1:15:41It's irreplaceable. It is. I wouldn't redo it for any other way.

1:15:45But it is a very, like, you're, it's a very solitary thing.

1:15:48It is. Like, you don't even cross, you cross the finish line, your advisors there,

1:15:52your family comes, but it's, it's like, it is a tunnel, like, this big.

1:15:56Going to the Super Bowl to watch your favorite team play is, you're going through

1:15:59that, the tunnel with, you know, millions of people.

1:16:03One of the joys of awe science, you know, we gathered stories of awe from

1:16:0926 countries. And it's one of my favorite parts of this research.

1:16:13And this is, like, India and Brazil and Poland and Chile and Mexico and Japan

1:16:18and Korea, South Korea and Russia.

1:16:20I mean, everybody. We brought him in, got these stories, you know, like, what.

1:16:24What is vast and mysterious?

1:16:25What gives you goosebumps? What's amazing or awesome to you?

1:16:28And when you get stories from Brazil or Argentina, they're going to write about it.

1:16:33They're going to tell you about football, you know.

1:16:36And, you know, when you get stories from parts of the United States, they're going

1:16:41to talk about, you know, American football and baseball.

1:16:45You get stories from Boston, there's going to be a Red Sox story.

1:16:49And we have not studied sports in my emotion science because most emotion scientists are

1:16:55not good athletes. They're picked last in grammar school.

1:16:58They're grouchy about sports, and yet it's super emotional.

1:17:01And I will tell you a story that has science and personal wisdom.

1:17:07As I gathered these stories, I was like, God, you know, part of collective effervescence,

1:17:12just like Taylor Swift or being in a punk mosh pit, is also sports.

1:17:18And just like it is awesome to follow a sports team and be there live.

1:17:25And there's this great obscure sociology paper that said being a fan of the Pittsburgh

1:17:31Steelers is like being in a religion because you have your rituals.

1:17:35They have these towels they sing around.

1:17:38You think of yourself as the Steeler nation.

1:17:41They talk about God -like experiences on the field.

1:17:45They have these spiritual moments where in freezing days they'll take off their clothes and

1:17:50cheer and cry together. And I was teaching this recently, and there were two Steelers

1:17:56fans in the audience, and they're like, that's exactly it.

1:17:59But I'll tell you more.

1:18:00Like everywhere you go, if you're a fan, a Steeler fan, there are Steeler bars

1:18:06that you can go to.

1:18:08And when the Steelers play, they're going to be Steelers fans.

1:18:11And if you're a kid and the Steelers lose, somebody who's old will tell you,

1:18:16I remember when we lost in 1983, and we'll recover.

1:18:20We'll have this expansion of time.

1:18:23It was so rich to me.

1:18:24It was like we love sports.

1:18:27Sports, the Olympics are old.

1:18:29They're 3 ,000 years old.

1:18:31The ball court games in the Mayan traditions were amazing ways to gather community and

1:18:39become collective. So, you know, it was really eye -opening for me just to sense

1:18:47the awesomeness of sports. And one of my great joys of writing the book was

1:18:51to talk with Steve Kerr, who was coaching the Warriors at the time.

1:18:54He's a righteous guy, you know.

1:18:57He is a person of truth.

1:18:59And just getting a sense of, like, how awesome it is to, I mean, for

1:19:04him to coach a game, and the Warriors were in this amazing period, and look

1:19:08up into the stands and 10 ,000 people are dancing.

1:19:12Because of your coaching, you know.

1:19:14I was like, that's pretty good.

1:19:17Yeah, he's really tapped in, isn't he?

1:19:18He's a meditator and wildlife experience.

1:19:23And trauma early, you know.

1:19:25His dad. Losing his dad.

1:19:26Yeah. And that orienting him to what really matters.

1:19:30I'm thinking about the things that inhibit awe, but I'm also thinking about solutions.

1:19:36Yeah. You know, it sprang to mind that, you know, it's funny.

1:19:39Sometimes I get tacked to, like, ice baths for some.

1:19:42Look, folks, that was a whim, right?

1:19:44I mean, that was a whim.

1:19:45I mean, sure, I've done some cold plunges.

1:19:46I like it. I got to do them.

1:19:47I do the cold. I sound good.

1:19:48Yeah, it's fun. I mean, you know, it's psychologically painful, and you feel better afterwards,

1:19:53and it'll make anyone mentally stronger because cold is a universal stressor.

1:20:00But, you know, it gets kind of a bad rap mostly because people don't like

1:20:04doing it. Everyone loves the sauna.

1:20:06It's kind of funny. Everyone's cool with sauna, and the Finns love the sauna, and

1:20:10it's a social thing for them.

1:20:11And one thing that I think has been overlooked, and it just sprang to mind

1:20:14now, so I overlooked it as well, is that, you know, there's this thing that's

1:20:19wonderful about experiences that we can have with other people, but that we can also

1:20:23do on our own, and when we do them on our own, we know other

1:20:26people are doing it on their own too.

1:20:28And so it's kind of a different version of what we've been talking about.

1:20:32And, you know, the quote -unquote health and wellness community, they take some heat, like

1:20:36people go, oh, it's all about supplements or all about cold plunges, you know, and

1:20:39I've got like a particular finger I hold up when I hear that.

1:20:43But it's not about that.

1:20:47There's this deeper layer that's much more important that's formed over the last, I would

1:20:51say, five to 10 years, because it used to be meditation, breath, where Esalen, love

1:20:55Esalen. Yeah, same here. Amazing, incredible place.

1:20:58Historic. Historic, and many important things actually happened there that people don't even realize in

1:21:02terms of shifting world politics and world peace.

1:21:05Yeah, they brought the Russians in there.

1:21:07For example, to end the Cold War.

1:21:10Yeah, and Gorbachev. Yeah, incredible, right?

1:21:13But, you know, so it used to be these isolated pockets, but now, you know,

1:21:17people get together to sauna.

1:21:18People get together to do breath work.

1:21:19People get together to cold plunge.

1:21:21And of course, for thousands of years, humans have been doing this.

1:21:24This is not a new thing.

1:21:26And people look at that and they go, this is wacky or it's about the

1:21:29marketing of this. Actually, I think that there's a connection that's formed among people who

1:21:34want to take good care of their health.

1:21:35They want to have some control over their state because otherwise the world will take

1:21:41control of it for you.

1:21:41And meditating is a very solitary experience for most people.

1:21:45So there's something pretty nice about going to a banya.

1:21:48I love banyas. Russian banyas.

1:21:50And then also doing the sauna.

1:21:51on your own or cold plunge on your own.

1:21:53And I think that what it builds is a community that is linked on social

1:21:57media. So from now on, when I see people doing things that I go, oh,

1:22:01cool. Like I like a bit of that.

1:22:02I don't maybe do it every day or I do that every day to get

1:22:04to see my morning sunlight.

1:22:06The notion that there's a community being built, that was the original intention of social

1:22:11media. And so I think social media can have this dominant negative effect on awe

1:22:16and day -to -day experience.

1:22:18So a question is, are there ways?

1:22:21Surely there are, but how could we build more of a sense of like this

1:22:25communal feeling, leveraging what people are already doing?

1:22:29They're already on their phones and scrolling.

1:22:31Hopefully they're also doing things to benefit their health, to make them feel less isolated.

1:22:36Because as Jonathan Haidt and others have pointed out quite correctly, it can really fracture

1:22:41us into the me, the ego version, where it's, but it's kind of the perfect

1:22:48venue to connect people also.

1:22:50So I don't expect you to come up with any answers right on the fly,

1:22:54but I feel like it's not going anywhere.

1:22:56So how could we build or glean more sense of a community through things that

1:23:03we're doing, actually doing in our daily lives is I think a question that's worth

1:23:07exploring. It's profoundly important. You know, the, you know, the preceding question is like, what

1:23:15are the enemies of awe?

1:23:16What gets in the way or the barriers?

1:23:18And you just nailed a couple is, you know, online life, you know, and I

1:23:22think Jonathan Haidt is right that it's not only anxiety producing, but we don't think

1:23:27about the opportunity costs of like, it deprives me of all, you know, and in

1:23:33our study of 2 ,600 people around the world, what makes them feel awe.

1:23:37No one ever said being on Meta or Facebook or, you know, or, you know,

1:23:44or Instagram. There are a couple of reasons, worries I have about online life, and

1:23:49I'm kind of working on this now, you know, and one is, is the content

1:23:55itself, which is, you know, it's been algorithmically designed.

1:24:00I was at Facebook when some of those algorithms I was advising there were set

1:24:05in place of like making people hate each other and not demonstrate all of our,

1:24:10all the wonderful things about human beings, which are ample.

1:24:15And then online life disrupts sharing, and the technologies of today have disrupted sharing.

1:24:21So we don't share music like we used to share.

1:24:24We used to listen to music together.

1:24:26That's down. Going to movies is down 40%, right?

1:24:30That used to be a very important collective cultural experience.

1:24:34Did you see the latest Scorsese or Pixar or whatever?

1:24:37Now it's streaming, right? So I really worry about that.

1:24:41And I think the next challenge in, in the technological world and the new, the

1:24:46social media and the platforms is, is like you said, how do you enable the

1:24:52sharing of experience? You are absolutely right.

1:24:57A lot of what we do for our bodies in the wellness space has a

1:25:02massively important community basis to it, where suddenly you're not, you know, meditating and breathing,

1:25:12but you're also sharing your mind and your experience.

1:25:15You're not, you know, listening to music, you're sharing an understanding of the music together

1:25:20in its cultural history. One of my favorite examples is farmers markets.

1:25:24They were non -existent in their nineties, right?

1:25:28And they used to be very common in American culture.

1:25:30And now there are 9 ,000 farmers markets growing.

1:25:34And yeah, people go to buy kale and get the honey and, you know, the

1:25:38fresh bread or whatever, but they're also going because it's community.

1:25:42It's profound community. And we derive a lot of benefits from that.

1:25:47Profound benefits, 10 years of life expectancy community.

1:25:5010 years. 10 years. Oh my goodness.

1:25:52There's so much obsession these days around what sport allows you to live the longest.

1:25:56Turns out it's like pole vaulting, which most people aren't going to do.

1:25:59Sprinting, gymnastics, the stuff that involves a lot of jumping and landing.

1:26:03Is that right? And, uh, and fast twitch activity.

1:26:05Yeah. I mean, there are a bunch of other features there about like who's biased

1:26:08to go into those sports and whatnot.

1:26:10But yeah, I mean, I think it's in keeping with this idea that like getting

1:26:12your heart rate way, way up and moving quickly as you, as quickly as you

1:26:16safely can, like once a week at something is probably a good idea.

1:26:19But the greatest benefit seen there is something like five to eight years.

1:26:24So you're talking about a 10 year benefit.

1:26:26And that's a meta analysis of 350 ,000 participants.

1:26:29So that's that you can go to the bank with that, like social community, very

1:26:33good for the body. I think it's the greatest challenge of our, our, our social

1:26:39media and our, our platforms.

1:26:41And I've advised it, Facebook, 2010 to 2015, Google, Pinterest, a little bit of Apple.

1:26:48And I keep telling them like, you know, this is the singular challenge.

1:26:53And it's so, it's hard.

1:26:56It's, you know, technologies are asynchronous, you know, Hey, I'll send you a text.

1:27:00And 18 hours later, I hear from you, you're not making eye contact.

1:27:05The visual connection is degraded.

1:27:07You know, Steve Pinker observed rightly.

1:27:10So like when I'm on zoom, I have to look at the down to see

1:27:15the camera or whatever, or I look at the screen.

1:27:17So my eye contact is going down.

1:27:19I'm not making eye contact like we are.

1:27:22It's just the technology works against it.

1:27:25And I think it's the hard problem of the social media platforms is, can they

1:27:30do what you're aspirationally asking for, which is like, get us to feel connected.

1:27:35You know, Mark Zuckerberg, the original statement about Facebook was open and connected.

1:27:42And I think they failed.

1:27:43And I think we got to, we, it's the challenge of our times.

1:27:48I know Mark a bit.

1:27:49And I know, you know, I trust he wants that.

1:27:54I know. I really do.

1:27:56I know some people will push back on that statement, but I actually know that

1:28:01he wants that. And I know some of the folks in the leadership at Instagram,

1:28:06they want that. I know.

1:28:07Like these people actually have very healthy personal lives.

1:28:11They understand the value of connection, both at the level of the family, friendships, but

1:28:15also at large. They want that.

1:28:18I think that maybe, I'm being optimistic here, but maybe AI will offer an opportunity

1:28:24for that, as opposed to divorcing us from gathering and seeing facial expressions and hearing

1:28:31voices together or observing other things.

1:28:35You know, I do think that right now, the way that most social media experiences

1:28:40land is the exact opposite of awe.

1:28:43I will say that because, and I can say that with a fair degree of

1:28:47certainty, because I spend a good amount of time on social media, teaching, learning, and

1:28:51looking for entertainment, trying not to get, you know, rage baited or numbing out.

1:28:56Those are the two things I look out for, rage baiting and numbing out.

1:28:59Well put. There's a version of social media that's happening right now where we're going

1:29:04further and further into our silos.

1:29:06Yeah. But I don't think it has to be that.

1:29:08Not at all. I don't.

1:29:09I think it could be really leveraged to connect people.

1:29:12You know, when I started advising at Facebook 2010 to 20, it was like Arab

1:29:16Spring and democracy was spreading.

1:29:18And in many ways, we've had this great democratization of things, of people sharing music.

1:29:25You know, instantaneously, I can hear music from any part of the world, which, you

1:29:31know, that's profound and visual art and knowledge and podcasts.

1:29:35And we've got to be nuanced about this.

1:29:37But we do need, you know, to think intentionally about design, you know, and that,

1:29:44you know, I really worry about the privileging of hate.

1:29:47I forgot what you called it.

1:29:48But that has been privileged.

1:29:52And that's not human nature.

1:29:54We are not all trolls and, you know, tracking people.

1:30:00And, you know, and that is a degradation of who we are.

1:30:04And I think science would guide us in many ways to avoid that.

1:30:09So I think it's, we're in this big reflection period about how to redesign.

1:30:14And I hope, I hope they listen to the social science.

1:30:17It has a lot of good things to say.

1:30:18I've had this thought that the way social media is now.

1:30:23Yeah. It's the direct opposite of awe for the following reason.

1:30:29Awe -inspiring experiences, you never forget them.

1:30:33You never forget them. I mean, we could spend 15 hours talking about first concert,

1:30:38second concerts, first love, first kiss, you know, first break up, you know, which is

1:30:43its own form of awe, like shit.

1:30:45Like this can, there's this flip side to this love thing, right?

1:30:48You know, I mean, there's all that.

1:30:50I sometimes do the test of myself.

1:30:53I go, okay, I spent, I don't know how much time on social media yesterday,

1:30:56but do I remember anything specific?

1:30:59I don't think I do.

1:31:00I don't think I remember anything specific.

1:31:03But there was tons of sensory input.

1:31:06A fair amount of time, I remember a damn thing.

1:31:10And so that's scary. It is scary.

1:31:13Because the only thing that resembles that is drugs of abuse.

1:31:18And I'm very fortunate that I don't have a drug thing.

1:31:21I never, I never felt drawn to them in a way that I felt like

1:31:25I couldn't escape from them or same with alcohol.

1:31:27Well, easy, easy, easy clip for me to not drink, I will say.

1:31:33But my friends who have had real challenges with alcohol and substances, they'll tell you,

1:31:39like, it's this super compelling thing.

1:31:42But then you don't have anything to say about it or for it.

1:31:47It's just a space -time disintegration and not the space -time disintegration of psychedelics, which

1:31:54may have some benefits. We'll talk about that.

1:31:57So to me, that's the problem with social media.

1:31:59There's nothing memorable about yesterday's social media.

1:32:02And I do think that the people who build it want it to be impactful

1:32:06on the day -to -day scale.

1:32:09But also, of course, they'd want it to be memorable.

1:32:12Yeah. Some kids should be talking about, like, you're talking about Laurel Canyon.

1:32:17Yeah, I know. But I don't know if they're going to feel that way.

1:32:20Well, you know, one of the things I'm really interested in right now, Andrew, is

1:32:24awe design, right? And, you know, I'm working with Gale Architecture in Copenhagen.

1:32:28Like, how do you design cities for more awe?

1:32:30It's not hard and it's good for people, right?

1:32:34A little bit of music, a little bit of green space, a little bit of

1:32:36art, get people looking at each other and talking and buzzing, right?

1:32:40Easy to do. And I think you've just laid out, you know, and someone could

1:32:44write a manifesto like... Maybe my life on the smartphone is the antithesis of awe.

1:32:51It's small. Awe is vast.

1:32:53It's sped up. Awe slows things down.

1:32:56It has a fragmentation to it.

1:32:58Awe integrates, right? It's about micro things.

1:33:02Awe is about systems. Like when you feel awe towards music, it's like, I get

1:33:06it all here right now.

1:33:08Its content is not inspiring very often.

1:33:11And it all could be.

1:33:13Sometimes it is. Because I think that the space -time aperture that we talked about

1:33:17before, I think the problem with social media is actually its power to bring the

1:33:22whole space -time into an aperture this big.

1:33:25I actually think that it has to do, crazy hypothesis, happy to be wrong.

1:33:30I actually think the whole problem with it has to do with the fact that

1:33:34it brings long timescales, past, present, and future, different frame rates into one real -world

1:33:46visual aperture. Right, right. Because when, I haven't been to the sphere in Las Vegas,

1:33:50but friends of mine who are musicians who love live music, who are producers who

1:33:54love live music, tell me, it is incredible.

1:33:58Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, in some cases the live band is there, and

1:34:03in other cases they're not.

1:34:04And so there's no reason why that technology should be awesome for, again, here we

1:34:10go, no better word for awe than awesome.

1:34:13So we're just going to stick with it.

1:34:14We're going to roll with it.

1:34:16There's no reason why digital can't be awe -inspiring.

1:34:21Yeah, it should. And we have to, you know, we just have to take a

1:34:25step back in these conversations, right?

1:34:27There's, you know, there's new work out about AI helping medical doctors, and it's, you

1:34:32know, and the writer of this book coming out of UC San Francisco is like,

1:34:35it's like having the best brain trust about medicine right with you all the time.

1:34:40Who wouldn't want that, you know?

1:34:42And I think, let's remember that.

1:34:44And yeah, I think that's the challenge, is to have these AI and the devices

1:34:50that it is manifest on get us to what's awesome.

1:34:53And we'll see. You know, I hope so.

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1:36:11Can we talk about embarrassment?

1:36:12Yeah. And my favorite, my other favorite emotion when I began my career.

1:36:17It was guys, right? Guys specifically teasing one another.

1:36:20I definitely experienced that. And I definitely participated in it in a benevolent way.

1:36:28But the teasing that happens in groups of good male friends can be pretty brutal.

1:36:34Oh, yeah. But there's a pleasure in it most of the time.

1:36:38Yeah. Yeah. So what's that about?

1:36:40I know. Well, you know, it all begins really in, like, when I started scientifically

1:36:48to depart from the Ekman canon, if you will, of those six emotions we talked

1:36:53about earlier. And I was doing a project in his lab, and we were startling

1:36:57people and studying the startle response, a seven muscle movement motor pattern built into the

1:37:03nervous system. And I noticed people got embarrassed after they were startled unexpectedly.

1:37:08You know, you'd blast them with a noise out of the blue in the lab,

1:37:11and they'd be like, whoa, I think I spit and, you know, peed my pants

1:37:15or whatever. And they show this response.

1:37:17And I took it to Ekman, and it's the blush.

1:37:20And people avert their gaze, and they look away, and they hide their face, you

1:37:24know. And he's like, that's a motor pattern of emotion.

1:37:26You should go study it.

1:37:28And I did. And then I started to notice, and there's a really rich literature

1:37:32on that, and Darwin wrote about this, that a person's embarrassment is a sign of

1:37:39their commitment to the collective, right?

1:37:41Like, man, you know, I called you by the wrong name, or, you know, I

1:37:45farted in the yoga class, or whatever it is, and I'm embarrassed, like, I'm sorry,

1:37:49man, you know, I apologize.

1:37:51That really matters. And when you see people get embarrassed, you like them more, and

1:37:55you trust them more, and you give resources to them, and you think they're a

1:37:58good group member. And then I was like, man, you know, like, I've played a

1:38:03lot of pickup basketball in my life, thousands of games.

1:38:07And you're banging into it, and there's just a lot of teasing and taunting.

1:38:10And, you know, people I admire, you know, great athletes.

1:38:14tease and taunt, you know, it's just part of what we do and we're banging

1:38:18into each other. And I started to put it together like, you know, the right

1:38:24kind of teasing within a collective, you're kind of provoking people to see if they

1:38:29care about the group, right?

1:38:31And then the wrong kind of teasing, which we documented in our labs, like that's

1:38:35bullying and harassment. And we can pinpoint like, that's inappropriate.

1:38:39You know, you're trying to, you're not keeping people in the group, you're excluding them

1:38:44or humiliating them. So we did this study as one of my first studies, we

1:38:48brought four fraternity, we brought groups of fraternity, four fraternity guys in each interaction from

1:38:57this fraternity house at the University of Wisconsin.

1:39:00And we gave them each nicknames, or we gave them each initials, and we had

1:39:06them make up nicknames based on the initials.

1:39:11So two, two letters of a nickname were A .D.

1:39:16And I'm not sure I can say what the nicknames were like, but it, you

1:39:19know, another drunk, and it gets pretty profane.

1:39:24And so we let them tease each other.

1:39:27And they start teasing each other.

1:39:29And they are really like, this is young men coming out of a fraternity house

1:39:34teasing each other. There are funny stories.

1:39:37People got embarrassed. The stories and the teasing was kind of about like, I'm going

1:39:46to accuse you of something that you shouldn't do in this group, right?

1:39:50Like pass out drunk naked, you know, in the streets of Wisconsin.

1:39:54Don't do that, right? And then they get embarrassed and they say, I'm not going

1:39:58to do that. And what we found is the more that they got embarrassed, the

1:40:05better they liked each other.

1:40:06Because it's turning to this motor pattern of like, wow, I'm showing you that I

1:40:11care about what you're accusing me of and I'll get embarrassed.

1:40:14You see that in me, we become closer.

1:40:17The guys who are better teasers and that were more playful and funny and made

1:40:24people aware of the norms that matter to the group, but not really humiliate people.

1:40:30Those guys are more popular in the group.

1:40:32And that's been replicated, right?

1:40:33Just storytelling and ribbing each other.

1:40:37And it was part of healthy group functioning is just embarrassing each other.

1:40:43You think about roasts, you know, it's the end of your career.

1:40:47You're going to get that someone's going to talk about your career.

1:40:50You're going to get hammered.

1:40:52And it's wonderful. I fear that day.

1:40:54Yeah, yeah. And that's part of this phenomenon of like, we make fun of the

1:41:01people we love the most.

1:41:02Siblings are, you know, big families, a lot of siblings tease each other like mad,

1:41:09you know, and they joke and they josh and they wrestle and they give each

1:41:12other noogies and they have nicknames for each other.

1:41:14Again, to like, make sure everybody's aware of what matters and how not to violate

1:41:20those rules. So, um, it was, it was fun research.

1:41:23It was meant a lot to me.

1:41:25I bet. I mean, I grew up in a big, big packs of boys.

1:41:28I mean, my street growing up and skateboarding thing.

1:41:31And then science, it was a little bit different.

1:41:34Actually, when I came up, there was more of that.

1:41:36It changed over time for, I think for good reasons.

1:41:40But, um, and then of course there's my podcast team and people keep telling me

1:41:44the reason I get teased a lot is because they, cause they like me, but,

1:41:47um, I saw an, uh, an interesting, well, two things, uh, a former guest on

1:41:53this podcast, who's a psychiatrist, who's also very versed in Eastern philosophy, uh, Dr.

1:41:58K as they call him, um, said that embarrassment is important because it also signals

1:42:04that you're not a creep, especially he was referring to heterosexual relationships where, you know,

1:42:09a guy says something trying to be, uh, you know, trying to flirt basically, or

1:42:14pick up on someone. And then, uh, the woman says something back and he like

1:42:19gets embarrassed. He realized like he said the wrong thing.

1:42:21If he doesn't show embarrassment, he's creepy.

1:42:24If he does, it verifies that he has a certain degree of empathy and self

1:42:28-reflection now. So that was his point, but it feels relevant here.

1:42:31So. And he's right. I mean, you know, uh, Darwin early on wrote about the

1:42:37blush being a sign of your healthy character, your moral virtue almost.

1:42:41And in non -human species, the facial reddening is associated with physical robustness.

1:42:48And then in humans, we think of it as moral robustness.

1:42:50Like, yeah, I care about stuff.

1:42:52We did work early on, Bob Knight at Berkeley, orbital frontal patients.

1:42:57The overall frontal cortex is in part where your ethical consideration takes place.

1:43:02And if you have damage to that region of the brain through brain trauma, you

1:43:07fall off a motorcycle or, you know, fall off a ladder, you don't show embarrassment

1:43:12where you should. And they feel creepy, if you will, or just like, like, hey,

1:43:18they're not playing by the rules.

1:43:19So it's, it's a very subtle thing.

1:43:22Irving Goffman wrote a lot about it.

1:43:23The great sociologist, like our embarrassment is telling people like, I know what the rules

1:43:28are and I care about them.

1:43:30I'm committed to them. So your psychiatrist friend is right.

1:43:32Along the lines of, of teasing.

1:43:37Someone I'm, I'm proud to call a friend who's also public facing Jocko Willink, who's

1:43:41also, it turns out one.

1:43:43We're friends for a bunch of reasons, but one of them is that he grew

1:43:46up really into East Coast hardcore music.

1:43:50Not a genre I gravitated towards, but there's some marginal overlap with the types of

1:43:58music. I mean, too, we've gone to shows together, and he put something up.

1:44:02You know, every once in a while on social media, somebody posts something that really

1:44:05lands, Naval or Jocko. And Jocko's a man of few words, so I'm going to

1:44:09put more words to it than he was able to.

1:44:11But the quote was something like, you know, if you want to understand, and he's

1:44:18a former Navy SEAL team operator.

1:44:20Most people know that. But if you want to understand males in groups and healthy

1:44:26masculine friendship, guys are going to tease each other relentlessly in front of each other,

1:44:35but they'll never tease behind somebody's back, and they'll back the other person who they

1:44:40were just teasing in person against the rest.

1:44:43You know, they'll buffer them against any kind of criticism.

1:44:45So that's a very interesting kind of contrast there that I think is true.

1:44:51Yeah. Like, you know, it's not like you tease your friend behind his back.

1:44:55It's the teasing to his face that actually builds the bond.

1:44:58Yeah. There's another piece of that, which is that you know that that person would

1:45:01back you if you're out of the room.

1:45:03And, you know, a couple of friends, all my friends come to mind, but a

1:45:06couple of people who really think about and talk about this loyalty component, Jocko was

1:45:11talking about there, Lex Friedman.

1:45:12And, you know, it's a critical component to, I'm sure, female friendship, too, although I

1:45:18only know my own experience.

1:45:19So to male friendship, which is that they can say anything to your face, even

1:45:25be harsh criticism. But you know that if you're out of the room, they're not

1:45:29going to cut you down.

1:45:30Yeah. They're going to reserve that for when you're standing in front of them, thankfully.

1:45:33We documented that in the fraternity study that, you know, when you when you tease

1:45:38somebody and you're like, hey, man, do you see this guy's dance moves or you

1:45:43see this guy shoot free throw, whatever it is, you're just making light of human

1:45:48foible and all the funny things that we do.

1:45:52And there's there's there's just this really subtle repair work where they're saying, like, I'm

1:45:57teasing you, but I know you got it, you know, and I'll support you.

1:46:01And I agree. I think that, you know, part of what teasing does is it

1:46:05says, like, what do we as a collective really care about?

1:46:08And let's surface those norms in a lighthearted way.

1:46:12And we know together. And if and if you make mistakes, you should be apologetic

1:46:16about it. But part of it also is just this sort of I got your

1:46:21back repair work that they did.

1:46:24And it's profound. It, you know, it's interesting.

1:46:27I was kind of this shy kid.

1:46:29I was very small growing up and kind of the teasing often cross lines in

1:46:35high school, just, you know, bullying and so forth.

1:46:38And then I started to play basketball and, you know, and I realized, like, a

1:46:44lot of it's just just men making sure they know that the rules of the

1:46:50game, you know, and showing also in those moments of the joys of laughing together.

1:46:56Like, I support you. I'm with you.

1:46:58Right. What a sophisticated thing to do compared to the alternatives.

1:47:03I have a sister, so I was always struck by the brothers in my neighborhood.

1:47:06Yeah. There are two in particular, like, I would hear screaming outside, go outside.

1:47:11His older brother, his name was Peter, holding Michael's face in the sprinklers.

1:47:17His brother's just crying and crying, screaming.

1:47:20I mean, relentless older brother torture.

1:47:24Some people hear this and probably be like, oh, call the cops, you know, and

1:47:27I don't know what the reaction is nowadays.

1:47:29I'll try not to be generationally biased.

1:47:31I don't know. Yeah, he was abusing his younger brother.

1:47:35But if anyone said or tried to do anything to either one of them, they

1:47:41would immediately pair up and fight anyone.

1:47:44It was interesting, right? Yeah.

1:47:46For a guy who had an older sister, this is a very different experience, right?

1:47:49I mean, she had her own form of older sister kind of hazing to her

1:47:53younger brother. But there really does seem to be something critical about kind of defining

1:47:59the relationship with people one -on -one in groups versus when there's an outside threat.

1:48:04Yeah. And not that we want outside threat.

1:48:07Yeah. But as long as we're talking about the sort of the – I don't

1:48:11want to say disintegration. That's too pessimistic.

1:48:13Yeah. The sort of gradual erosion of this collective feeling.

1:48:17Is there less just kind of grouping up together and doing things?

1:48:23Yeah. Yeah, you know, I – 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago,

1:48:31first there was the science of loneliness and isolation, John Cassioppo, and then those who

1:48:39followed, like, whoa, we are fragmenting.

1:48:42And we would spend much too much time alone, isolated.

1:48:46And then COVID hit, lockdown, et cetera.

1:48:49And our Surgeon General, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy got it right, like, it's an

1:48:54epidemic of loneliness. And I, as a social psychologist, you know, interested in these social

1:49:00emotions, I'm like, you know, you just look at the basic raw facts, like, picnics

1:49:05are down by half. We don't go to movies like we used to.

1:49:10We don't listen to music together.

1:49:14We don't, 30, the estimate is that 30 % of meals in the United States,

1:49:19people eat them by themselves.

1:49:21You know, I eat a lot of my meals by myself.

1:49:24We go on walks by ourselves.

1:49:25We don't go to church.

1:49:26Church is way down. So the kind of the broad sociological trends are alarming on

1:49:33that fragmentation. But I think the young generation is putting it back together in really

1:49:39interesting ways. You know, we know from survey data, the 25 -year -olds, 30 -year

1:49:46-olds are really interested in game nights.

1:49:48You know, those are coming back.

1:49:50They're interested in living together, cooperative living.

1:49:54They're cooking more with each other.

1:49:56Value -wise, they care more about community than my generation.

1:50:00I was the great explosion of individualism.

1:50:03And they're kind of like, you know, if I choose a job, I want to

1:50:08make sure I'm working with other people I like.

1:50:10I didn't think about that.

1:50:11I don't know, you know.

1:50:13So I think it's coming back.

1:50:15And I love the signs of, you know, festivals are reappearing now.

1:50:22The farmer's market that I've talked about, the, you know, the dance groups that are

1:50:27now returning, contact dance, I mean, these yoga studios, one out of eight Americans does

1:50:35yoga. You know, I do yoga two to three times.

1:50:38That's so wild. It's amazing.

1:50:4015 years ago, no one would have predicted that.

1:50:42Also 15 years ago, no one would have predicted that the single, we're being told

1:50:47that one of the single most important health interventions that women and men should do

1:50:51is like lift weights. The only people who lifted weights when I was growing up

1:50:54were like bodybuilders and preseason football players.

1:50:56Is that true? Lifting weights is...

1:50:58I mean, you never want to actually live this way.

1:51:00But if you, if you could only pick one form of exercise to do once

1:51:04a week, that's what you would do.

1:51:06I mean, just in terms of bone health, if it's done properly, you probably get

1:51:09some cardiovascular benefit too. But just in terms of brain health, I mean, obviously you

1:51:14want to do both, but resistance training is clearly has a longevity benefit.

1:51:18But for the longest time, I mean, you just didn't see women in gyms.

1:51:21Very few, excuse me. Very few.

1:51:23And if you did, they were sort of, they, you know, women are pushing them

1:51:27heavy for them or in some cases heavier than the guys are lifting.

1:51:30But regardless, that's a, that's a huge shift.

1:51:33Yeah. So many more people are in gyms.

1:51:34And I wonder whether or not it contributes to some sort of feeling of collective...

1:51:39I mean, you're training hard around other people.

1:51:42Yeah. So that's cool. I think Vivek Murthy in particular, who I deeply admire and

1:51:48have worked with a bit, you know, he, he got our health world.

1:51:52Think about it. Surgeon General of the United States, the first one to come out

1:51:56of public health traditions, did work in India.

1:51:58And he's like, there's this social side that you've covered in your show, like to

1:52:04health, to physical health, to the, the telomerase of your, your cells, your DNA and

1:52:10the vagus nerve and so forth, oxytocin, cortisol, it's social.

1:52:15There's, there are social dimensions to our nervous system.

1:52:17And I think that's coming, Andrew, like we're starting to see, why do I go

1:52:24to a farmer's market? Because I feel a sense of community.

1:52:26And why do I love yoga?

1:52:28Because I'm doing these postures all synchronized with people I don't know.

1:52:33And I feel a sense of awe and transcendence.

1:52:35Why do I lift weights?

1:52:37Right. There's the banter and the discussion and the history and the sense of, you

1:52:43know, of what this all means culturally.

1:52:45I think that's coming. I think the gyms are appealing to it in some sense,

1:52:51right? A little bit more community activity, and I think it's good news.

1:52:56You know, I love the Japanese onsen.

1:53:00You go for the water, you know, in the springs and the heat and so

1:53:06forth, but they, in their wisdom, have built entire community experiences around it, where you,

1:53:12you wash yourself and you bathe together and you eat together and you, there are

1:53:16sayings up on the walls and you spend a little time with your kids there,

1:53:21right? So I hope we learn because I think it's important.

1:53:26Yeah. I'm thinking a lot now about how we can bridge between these incredible technologies.

1:53:31Yeah. I am a fan, but also the non -negotiable technology of our nervous system

1:53:39and our biology and our psychology, right?

1:53:42Lately, because I have aquaria, I'm really into this thing called aquascaping, which is this

1:53:46Japanese form of like plants and freshwater fish and just obsessed with it.

1:53:51And when the ecosystem is doing well, I'm like, oh, like I feel, it's a

1:53:56form of, it's brought me some awe at times when like things are going well

1:54:00in there. I'm like, wow, it's just beautiful.

1:54:01And I think there are things that I would never do to my fish.

1:54:07I would never isolate them from one another, but I give them enough places to

1:54:11hide from one another because there's a lot of dominance hierarchy stuff being worked out

1:54:14between these discus. Yeah. I make sure they're on a light cycle.

1:54:18I make sure they're fed, but not overfed or underfed, right?

1:54:21And, um, I wouldn't do most of the things that we do to ourselves to,

1:54:27to my fish, you know, I wouldn't isolate them and give them like little videos

1:54:31of other fish to look at.

1:54:33Like, I know that wouldn't, that wouldn't work.

1:54:35Um, I know that they would die.

1:54:37I know. And so I think we can learn a lot from more simpler organisms

1:54:44and the sort of basic units of care and community.

1:54:47They're very similar. I mean, it gets played out differently, but they're very similar because

1:54:52obviously we evolved similar nervous systems, let alone similar needs.

1:55:00I would like to talk about psychedelics, if you're willing.

1:55:02I think there are at least two views of psychedelics.

1:55:06With the caveat that this is not a call for people to just start taking

1:55:10them, that these are powerful compounds that people with psychosis or bipolar conditions in their

1:55:16family really, really need to be careful and on and on.

1:55:20Just be careful. I don't say that to protect myself.

1:55:21I say that to protect whoever's listening and watching, really.

1:55:25No small bump. It's a whole thing.

1:55:28So some people will say, okay, they just send you inward, and that's the opposite

1:55:36of what we're talking about, like getting all the awe inside, like, okay, that's –

1:55:40I mean, that's pretty extreme.

1:55:44Other people will say that their experiences with psychedelics allow them to come out of

1:55:48that experience and really have a felt connection to people, to plants, to animals, to

1:55:57life that is profoundly positive for their feelings of connection.

1:56:02Yeah. And seeing awe, perhaps, even in lots of things.

1:56:06So how should we think about psychedelics?

1:56:09And we should probably constrain the question a little bit.

1:56:10Like, I'm not talking about MDMA, which is not psychedelic.

1:56:13It's an empathogen. Ketamine is not psychedelic.

1:56:16It's dissociative anesthetic. I'm starting to do this now because people start to lump, and

1:56:20it's actually causing issues for the potential legalization.

1:56:23So we need to be splitters, not lumpers here.

1:56:27So I'm talking about LSD, psilocybin, maybe DMT, ayahuasca, the classic psychedelics.

1:56:34Yeah. What are your thoughts on these?

1:56:35I'm good friends with Michael Pollan and was, you know, kind of walking the Berkeley

1:56:40Hills as he was producing that book and, you know, watched as we started a

1:56:45center for psychedelics at Berkeley.

1:56:48And, you know, it's a revolution.

1:56:50I mean, psychedelic use is up, you know, 40 % since his book.

1:56:55I mean, it's incredible to watch.

1:56:57And I have a few thoughts.

1:56:59You know, one is, you know, make sure to honor the indigenous traditions out of

1:57:04which they come. Those are spirit medicines in their community that are part of deep

1:57:09ethical traditions, you know, and to honor that with, you know, sharing of resources and

1:57:17knowledge and the right kind of acknowledgement, that's really important.

1:57:23I think in some sense, and, you know, David Yadin at Johns Hopkins and others

1:57:31and some of the early Roland Griffiths' work spoke to this, that they are about

1:57:37awe fundamentally. You know, they open up your mind and you see all life forms

1:57:43and time is different and your sense of self vanishes.

1:57:47Robin Carhart Harris, you know, and you're just connected to vast things, ecosystems and sense

1:57:54of humanity. And I think in some sense, when done in the right way, that's

1:57:58good news. You know, Molly Crockett and her team at Princeton, like, you go to

1:58:03a festival and you have psychedelics, a year later, you're kinder through awe, right?

1:58:09So I think that's important.

1:58:12I think it's great news what it does for the hard problems of the mind,

1:58:17you know, death, anxiety, addiction, trauma.

1:58:22Maybe veterans who are suffering twice the rates of PTSD, they're drawn to this, you

1:58:29know, and the VA is working on this.

1:58:31So, and the data look pretty good.

1:58:33OCD, right, hard problems of the mind, panic, right, that I've in part dealt with.

1:58:40That is good news. I worry about microdosing.

1:58:45You know, I think people are taking these things like coffee and it's not coffee,

1:58:54you know. No, it's not coffee.

1:58:56I drink coffee and I know a thing or two about psychedelics by experience and

1:59:01it's definitely not coffee. And the data speak to this and we've suddenly unleashed the

1:59:07use of it. But tens of millions of people are using it, not in the

1:59:11way that Michael Pollan describes of like putting it into a cultural container of inquiry

1:59:18and knowledge and guidance. And someone who knows what they're doing around you.

1:59:23And so safety even safety.

1:59:25Yeah. So we're seeing that.

1:59:27And I, you know, they changed my life.

1:59:29I got to them early, you know, in my late teens, 17, 18, 19, I

1:59:36was a very anxious, obsessive kid.

1:59:39And I think they opened up my mind in this perspective way we've been talking

1:59:43about. I don't really do them now.

1:59:45You know, they gave me a lot.

1:59:46That's why they're here. You know, it's funny, you know, Andrew, like when I was

1:59:51doing them, we were reading Castaneda, who's been debunked, you know.

1:59:55And we were reading the traditions and thinking about them spiritually and the doors of

2:00:00perception and all this good stuff, right?

2:00:03We were, they were embedded in.

2:00:05A culture of trying to find mysticism or whatever it is, and I hope people

2:00:10are doing that, you know, if they're going to be doing on them, make it

2:00:13a form of inquiry. It's a complicated story, like everything, like technology.

2:00:19Well, they're a form of plant technology, right?

2:00:21Which, quick vignette on that, we had someone here, Chris McCurdy, who runs a lab

2:00:26out in Florida. He studies kratom and other compounds from plants.

2:00:30The pharma companies, they bioprospect.

2:00:33They send people looking for plants that then they can find isolates and everything from

2:00:38aspirin to kratom to anesthetics, like cocaine.

2:00:43I'm not suggesting people use it as an anesthetic.

2:00:45They come from plants, but they're isolated and then synthesized and enriched, and that's where

2:00:51the extreme opiate, the extreme stimulant, you know, that's where it comes from.

2:00:55But they all come from plant alkaloids.

2:00:56Many of them come from plant alkaloids, which is interesting in its own right.

2:00:59But I share your feelings about microdosing, the data, Robin Carter -Harris tells me, and

2:01:05he's the real expert, of course, the data say there's no evidence of benefit from

2:01:10microdosing, at least on major depression, as compared to like two rounds of psilocybin with

2:01:15a guide, therapy before, during, and after, and on and on.

2:01:19I hope people hear that.

2:01:21Yeah, I hope they hear that.

2:01:22I had the opposite experience as you.

2:01:24I actually regret having done psychedelics when I was younger.

2:01:28They were terrifying. I didn't have a good experience.

2:01:31I stopped, didn't go anywhere near them.

2:01:33And then later, in a therapeutic setting, had a few experiences with them, not many,

2:01:39but that were immensely beneficial for me.

2:01:41So kind of the opposite direction there.

2:01:44But what we're talking about now, about kind of, okay, you know, there's this problem

2:01:51with certain technologies. There's the cultural, the culture wars.

2:01:55There's the political wars. There's the actual war that's also going on right now.

2:01:59In a lot of ways, this resembles like the 70s, 80s.

2:02:02There's not that. I mean, I remember a time when you had yuppies and you

2:02:04had hippies and you had punk rockers.

2:02:06I mean, you watch a John Hughes film.

2:02:07It was like, the idea was, it was like, oh, we're actually similar, right?

2:02:10The extent to which those films like showed people, hey, like people were actually similar

2:02:15along certain dimensions as opposed to so different.

2:02:17But, you know, I wonder, because I think about the not so recent and recent

2:02:24history of things, everything from breathwork, cold plunges, psychedelics, awe, music, the collective consciousness.

2:02:31I mean, it's going to look different now the same way that it looked different

2:02:36back then, right? Like, I'm trying to get outside my Gen X self these days

2:02:43and think like, so what would it look like?

2:02:45Like, I'm the old guy now.

2:02:47So what would it look like if these technologies, I just mentioned a few, but

2:02:51all of them, including social media, what would it look like if those were all

2:02:55used to the greatest benefit?

2:02:57Like, what would that look like?

2:02:58Can we be the open -minded parents of the 80s, you know?

2:03:03Can we be the, yeah, like, because I feel like I can scream all day

2:03:09about what I think about the science of this and that to younger people.

2:03:14But the only thing I actually have control over is like me.

2:03:18How do we, let's say 40 to 100 -year -olds, let's really lean it on

2:03:29the 40 to 70 -year -olds.

2:03:30Okay. How do we create the environment so that younger people can flourish with these

2:03:39technologies as opposed to being like the parents of the 70s and 80s that are

2:03:43like, oh, they got long hair and like, what is this like punk rock thing?

2:03:47Like, I don't want to be that person.

2:03:48That sucks. I also don't want to be the, and I see this a lot,

2:03:52unfortunately, people who are part of those movements.

2:03:55And then they're just like towing the party line because they're like wholeheartedly adhering to

2:04:01one political group without thinking about whether or not there's any hint of rational argument

2:04:07on the other side. Right?

2:04:08The whole point is not to be against.

2:04:10The whole idea is to be for what you believe is right.

2:04:13And so I don't know how to do this.

2:04:16Because you're older than I am by a bit.

2:04:18You're clearly wiser than I am, seriously.

2:04:20And you have more life experience.

2:04:23So what do we do?

2:04:25Like, really, like, what in the hell can we do?

2:04:28Because I don't like this.

2:04:30You guys are all on your phones.

2:04:31No, I know. Like, that doesn't feel good to me.

2:04:33Because they were telling us when we were younger, like, this is ridiculous.

2:04:36Like, the older guys are like, you know, small wheels on skateboard.

2:04:40They were right about the small wheels things.

2:04:41Turns out the wheels got too small.

2:04:43But Jim will understand that joke.

2:04:46But what do we do?

2:04:47I think we're in this moment, you know, with everything going on, you know, with

2:04:53AI and being online and polarization and climate crisis and, you know, the things that

2:05:01we worry about, the rise of white supremacy, politics, et cetera.

2:05:05Everybody's asking this question of, like, how do we kind of move forward?

2:05:10And, you know, in light of many of the things that we've talked about in

2:05:13this conversation, I'm most focused on what Robert Putnam started to write about and other

2:05:22people started to write about, like, just the breakdown of collective life and shared life.

2:05:27And I think that's a defining issue of our times as well as our relationship

2:05:32to. the natural world. And I find awe, as do other people, really refreshing.

2:05:43It provides a roadmap, which is, you know, and I'll give you a very concrete

2:05:48example. I'm working with Gale Architecture on a Cities of Awe initiative, and they do

2:05:55amazing work, hundreds of cities around the world.

2:05:5870 % of human population is in cities.

2:06:01Most of our carbon emissions come out of cities.

2:06:04And this is a place we can redesign and make it better, right?

2:06:10And awe is a wonderful lens.

2:06:12So you can ask, and you could ask the same of like, what do you

2:06:15give to a teenager who's suffering suicidal ideation?

2:06:19Or what do you give to a veteran who is coming back and feeling alienated

2:06:23from the world? You give them awe, right?

2:06:26And what does that mean?

2:06:27It's like, well, you give them a little nature.

2:06:29And that's, you rewild part of a city, right?

2:06:32You give them some public art.

2:06:34We love art. You know, we love visual art.

2:06:37You give them the opportunity to recognize the moral beauty.

2:06:41You know, you found it in Joe Strummer, just get them to interact with other

2:06:44people from face to face.

2:06:46You give them a little collective stuff, right?

2:06:51You, hey, we're going to have the yoga class in the town square or the

2:06:54Mexican Zocalo. Everybody walks together at a certain hour of the day and they suddenly

2:06:59feel peaceful, right? You give them ideas about big ideas and life.

2:07:05You give them a little bit of opportunity for meditation and reflection.

2:07:10That's easy to do. And when I, you know, was writing this book and just

2:07:16teaching social science for 30 years, it's like, man, you know, we used to do

2:07:22this really well. And it used to be temples and church, you know, that's where

2:07:27it all was brought together.

2:07:28And now we don't go there.

2:07:3055 % of Americans go to church.

2:07:32It used to be 90 or temple.

2:07:35I don't, I never did, you know, and I, and I, in some sense, miss

2:07:40it. You know, I see my, one of my best friends, very religious, few of

2:07:45them and they, they have so much and we're recreating that right now, right?

2:07:50And we've got to do it in a coherent way.

2:07:52If it's the place where people are lifting weights, there should be music there.

2:07:58There should be visual stuff.

2:07:59There should be some art, nature.

2:08:01There should be some wisdom and some moral beauty, right?

2:08:04That's, I love ironworks where I go climb because you go there and it's like,

2:08:11people are climbing, but there's, you get to see the, there's the art exhibit each

2:08:18month of a local artist.

2:08:20There's some music going on.

2:08:21You get to listen to music.

2:08:23So this isn't that hard to do, Andrew.

2:08:25And I think the awe science gives us a roadmap to think about what we

2:08:29share. I love that. I was not into CrossFit, but an ex -girlfriend of mine,

2:08:36when I met her was like really into CrossFit and they would do barbecues and

2:08:39they'd clean the gym and they would dress up in costumes and stuff.

2:08:42And I remember this is when I moved to San Diego to start my lab

2:08:44down there before I moved to Stanford.

2:08:46And I remember thinking like, this is kind of crazy.

2:08:48Like I went to the gym growing up.

2:08:50I always, since I was in my teens and I'm like, really?

2:08:54You guys like social? And they had this awesome social community.

2:08:57I know CrossFit has somewhat fallen out of favor now.

2:09:00I think the pandemic brought us into our isolation.

2:09:02You may be pleased to hear.

2:09:05I just thought of this.

2:09:07I can't remember. I can't believe that I didn't remember this earlier.

2:09:10One of the things that Joe Stromer was famous for after the clash, because, you

2:09:15know, he went into the kind of void of like, he wasn't doing anything.

2:09:20He wandered for a long time.

2:09:22He went down to Spain.

2:09:25Oh, he grew anyone who he was and they kind of realized who he was

2:09:28eventually. He was really searching, you know, his life had, he lost his brother to

2:09:32suicide, I believe. He ran the Paris Marathon, which is kind of famous, I think

2:09:40while smoking a cigarette. People always say, and I don't think he did any training.

2:09:44One thing that he was very well known for until his death was he would

2:09:48do campfires. Yeah. In Manhattan, he would take people down to the river and he

2:09:54had some famous friends like Jim Jarmusch and, you know, and well -known people in

2:09:59that world. But he would invite whoever.

2:10:03And there were kids. You got to see this documentary.

2:10:06It's so good. We'll put a link to it for people want to see.

2:10:08It's so good. There were kids, there were adults, and they'd stay out till like

2:10:14two or three in the morning playing music, singing, drumming.

2:10:18People get up and talk.

2:10:19And so he was constantly doing these campfires his entire life.

2:10:22Yeah. Knowing close friends of his, it's like, this is actually what he did.

2:10:26And he wasn't getting, they were able to film a few of these, but that

2:10:29was not the point. And he would bring out a radio because he thought like

2:10:33maybe you could like make it like a radio show of the thing.

2:10:36But it was not to record and distribute.

2:10:38It was just, so I don't know, I got this crazy idea in the back

2:10:40of my mind that maybe like I'm going to start doing campfires.

2:10:43I have to weigh in on some science.

2:10:45Okay. Oh, am I going to destroy the environment?

2:10:47No, not at all. Okay.

2:10:47I was afraid you were going to tell me that.

2:10:49In fact, I think this is a deep idea.

2:10:51There's this new science of campfires and they're several hundred thousand years old.

2:10:55And also, you know, when you study people in small scale societies.

2:11:01They gather at night around campfires and they tell certain kinds of stories, you know,

2:11:06stories of how they're all connected and helping each other and watching out for what

2:11:11is dangerous in the dark.

2:11:12And, you know, a lot of stuff happens that's fundamental to our humanity around campfires.

2:11:18So I think you're on to something really important, you know, that we need to

2:11:22return. When I go to the climbing gym, we all take saunas.

2:11:27You know, I do probably four saunas a week.

2:11:29Nice. And you get your sweat and your heart rate goes up and so good

2:11:35for your body. But then it's like everybody sort of offhandedly knows, like, I love

2:11:41the conversations that happen in the sauna, you know, and it's true.

2:11:44And so, yeah, we've got to, there are all these ways to get back to

2:11:48what we should be doing right now to bring us together.

2:11:52And campfires would be a good start.

2:11:54I'll come to your first one.

2:11:55Awesome. Campfire also great red light therapy.

2:11:58No joke. Long wavelength light only coming out of that fire.

2:12:01And, you know, everyone's obsessed with, like, red light therapy.

2:12:03You can get from the sun and you don't want to get too much UV.

2:12:05But, yeah, you get tons of long wavelength light exposure, which is known to be

2:12:09great for mitochondria. I mean, don't get me, I don't want to get going on

2:12:13this as too much of a tangent.

2:12:14We've got guests on here from University College London.

2:12:16I mean, the long wavelength light actually goes all the way through your body, even

2:12:19in light clothing, and is absorbed by the water in your mitochondria, which actually improves

2:12:25mitochondrial function in every single cell that has mitochondria.

2:12:31And where do we get this light from?

2:12:32Typically, it's from sunlight when it's low solar angle.

2:12:35So when it's low in the sky, because of Rayleigh scattering, you're getting rid of

2:12:38the UV. That's why you can see the orange and red.

2:12:41And it's not painful to look at the sun when it's low in the sky.

2:12:44When it's overhead and the UV index is high, it's, you know, full spectrum and

2:12:47you have to be careful of that.

2:12:48You're also, you got some color to you.

2:12:50But, like, something tells me your lineage was kind of like fair skinned, right?

2:12:53Oh, yeah. Okay, so, but everyone needs to be cautious about that.

2:12:57But that long wavelength light, you know, people will buy red light units and things.

2:13:00And those can be beneficial.

2:13:01They use them clinically now, but good data on that.

2:13:03But campfires do it. Yeah.

2:13:06And people love campfires. And there is this thing, if you were out in front

2:13:10of a campfire at night, even if you stay up very late, you wake up

2:13:13feeling pretty darn good. Yeah.

2:13:15You know, so I'm calling it right now.

2:13:18My team's going to hate me for this.

2:13:19But, you know, campfire coming to your town.

2:13:23Yeah. I've always dreamed of doing this, like taking a year and just getting a

2:13:27bus and just going from town to town and having science health discussions, but mostly

2:13:31just listening to people and doing campfires.

2:13:34And we probably would film it just because it.

2:13:36You should do it. I got to create content.

2:13:38My dream was to take that bus and to go to all the basketball courts

2:13:41of the country. That's your thing.

2:13:43Yeah. Pick up basketball is the same thing.

2:13:44It's like people gathering, banging into each other.

2:13:48Would you do it? You could probably figure out an experiment that goes with it.

2:13:51Well, my knees are the.

2:13:53But Stanford just developed this way to regenerate cartilage in humans.

2:13:57Yeah. Okay. Well, then I'll look into it.

2:13:59Yeah. I think it'd be, I love the idea.

2:14:01Do you believe in life after death?

2:14:03I don't ask every guest that, by the way.

2:14:05You're the only person I've ever asked that.

2:14:06Do you believe that something happens after all this?

2:14:08I do. I do. Yeah, you know, when I write about this in awe, when

2:14:14my brother Rolf passed away, colon cancer, 55 or so, you know, I watched the

2:14:21whole transition and, you know, his battle against it and his acceptance and then his

2:14:27leaving. And I had this profound experience that night, you know, a transcendent experience.

2:14:35And I'm like you, you know, Andrew, it's like neurons and statistics and cells and

2:14:40we can figure it all out and characterize everything.

2:14:43And I was like, I saw space in a different way.

2:14:47I saw something alive in him.

2:14:50And then afterward, I had a lot of people have this kind of grief experience

2:14:55of he was around, his voice, his hand was on my back.

2:14:59And I just thought for several years and still to this day of, you know,

2:15:07quantum reality and things beyond our three -dimensional, four -dimensional view of time and space

2:15:14and, you know, those basic laws.

2:15:20And that there is, you know, consciousness, maybe patterns of, you know, electromagnetic waves around

2:15:32our minds and bodies that are syncing up with other people that transcend the Newtonian

2:15:37world of the brain. And I believe that.

2:15:40And I don't know how to study it.

2:15:43I sense it in life.

2:15:45I think a lot of other people do too.

2:15:47And so that keeps me open to it.

2:15:50And now I've moved from, you know, being as skeptical but open, you know, agnostic

2:15:58to like, yeah, there's something there that's beyond what we know.

2:16:00So I believe it. Very cool.

2:16:05I hope you're right. I believe it too.

2:16:08But I just hope you're right.

2:16:09I sense you're right. Dacher, thank you so much for making the trip down here

2:16:14to talk with us today and share what you've been up to for all these

2:16:19years. You've had and continue to have a magnificent career.

2:16:23You know, it's really hard to do really good science, and it's even harder to

2:16:28do really good science. with a purpose, and you're doing that, and you continue to,

2:16:34and you just have a way about you that everyone now has been able to

2:16:40experience firsthand that, like, you really care.

2:16:43That's clear. You put a ton of thought into the work that you're doing.

2:16:49You've raised 25 professors, which is no small feat, I'll tell you.

2:16:57That's a monumental feat, which means that the work will continue, and you're still going,

2:17:02and I'm grateful for your book and that you're continuing to do this, and I

2:17:07hope you take that trip to maybe, if you can't do it around the entire

2:17:11country, you know, hit some pickup basketball games, because I think there's something to be

2:17:16learned there for sure. I sense it, and thanks for inspiring me, and I know

2:17:20you've inspired a ton of other people, so we'll put links to everything that you

2:17:23discussed and to your book, but you've definitely inspired us to think more deeply about

2:17:30basically what it is to be human and where to take all this technology that

2:17:33we have and this opportunity that we have and really do real good with it,

2:17:38so I'm very grateful to you.

2:17:40Thank you. Well, thank you, Andrew.

2:17:41It's been an incredible conversation.

2:17:43Let's do more. Definitely do it again.

2:17:45Yeah, thank you. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr.

2:17:48Dacher Keltner. To learn more about his work and to find links to his books,

2:17:52including his book on Awe, please see the links in the show note captions.

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2:18:31For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out.

2:18:33It's my very first book.

2:18:35It's entitled Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.

2:18:38This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and

2:18:41that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience.

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2:19:04You can pick the one that you like best.

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2:19:41call protocols in the form of one to three -page PDFs that cover everything from

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2:19:49We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training.

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2:20:06Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr.

2:20:09Dacher Keltner. And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

Cultivating Awe & Emotional Connection in Daily Life | Dr. Dacher Keltner