We're good? Yeah man, so tell me -- so, I'm like -- I'm -- I've been living under a rock for many many many years, but Yeah But stream chat is telling me that you're the guy. You're Reckful Gladiator, right? Yeah That's you, yeah. So I'm -- I guess that makes me a fan, but from like a decade
ago. Yeah, that's most of my viewership. They're a fan from a decade ago. That's interesting. So, tell me, what are we talking about today buddy? Um well I And what, am I -- am I calling you
Reckful? You can call me Byron if you want. (What do you prefer?) But yeah I've dealt with depression my whole life pretty much. I mean, so I was like 14 (Okay), and I'm 30 now.
(Okay) And a bunch of people in my chat were telling me I should call you, (Okay)
so here I am! (Okay) It's actually starting to get better just recently (Uh-huh) cuz I'm like
working on a project with some friends and it gives me a sense of purpose I
guess. (Okay) But uh, (What-- ) yeah go ahead. What's the project? By the way, so a couple of
ground rules: So I'm a psychiatrist, but I can't treat your depression over the internet (Yeah, gotcha) unfortunately, and then the other
thing is I tend to ask a lot of questions. If there's anything that you
don't feel comfortable answering, just don't answer it and just let me know.
Okay um and yeah, 'I need to turn your volume up' they're saying. Okay, I'm
turning it up now. Okay, is that good chat? (Yeah) Yeah, okay, talk a
little okay. Yeah, 1 2 3 testing 1 2 3 Should be good. All right yeah you can
ask whatever you want, and if I don't want to answer it on stream (Just don't answer it) I just won't I guess Yeah yeah okay. So tell me um, what do you mean by depression? Let's start there. Well I've been diagnosed with bipolar type 2. (Ah) And when I was six, my brother
killed himself. He also had it. How old was he? He was 21,
a very big age gap. (Okay) And then because of that, when I've gone to get
treated, they can never -- can never give me SSRIs. I've never tried an SSRI. Cuz he tried an SSRI and then that -- that happened after. (Okay)
Prozac. (Okay, okay) Um and I've tried a couple things. I've tried like -- I was on a really high dose of lithium at one point. How did that make you feel? Very bland yeah the same thing people
always say. Like kind of dead, you know, kind of -- (Yeah) Yeah, and then um, God I've tried a bunch of other ones, but they're not super
memorable. One of them gave me like some eye pain, so I had to stop taking
it cuz I was really sensitive to light. Maybe you know which one I'm talking
about. (Okay) I don't know, I tried a bunch of different ones. This is like, 14 years
ago, most of it, so now I don't really remember. Umm, but uh -- Has medication ever been helpful?
Okay, so the only thing that's been really helpful is when I was in
Amsterdam I took psilocybin and it really worked
for me. You know, so this is fascinating. So the FDA just today I think classified
psilocybin as a breakthrough therapy, I don't know if people know this, for
treatment for anxiety and depression. (Yeah yeah I heard about it yeah) So psilocybin was helpful, and in what way? It's such an intense feeling. It's kind
of hard to explain, but it let me get out of these like thought loops that I was
in that were causing me to be sad. (Yeah) And I just step back and see things in a
new perspective. Okay, so today's supposed to be a stream about meditation. And
Reckful, I'm gonna ask you a couple of other questions. But if it's okay with
you guys, we're gonna talk about that and like what's happening in your mind, and
why psilocybin is helpful, and how you can cultivate that sensation without
using psilocybin. (Okay!) So the first thing is like this this phrase of " thought loop" I
love. So why don't you explain to people "what is a thought loop"? Um okay, now you'd
explain it better! *Laughs* But just certain things -- You're going along through your
day and a certain thing happens. And it always causes you to think in the same
pattern of -- a certain negative feeling at the end. And I always hear it described as
it's like an icy mountain with the sleds. A lot of the sleds have gone down and then
there's these patterns that have formed that your mind tends to go down one of these paths
of the sleds (Yup) And then when you're on psilocybin, it seems like it doesn't. It's
just kind of free to think of whatever. (Yeah so -) Okay. Yeah, so let's talk about thought
loops for a second. So the first thing to understand is that it's a repetitive
pattern of thinking that sort of leaves you -- leads you to the same place every
time. But then you take the ski lift back to the top of the mountain and then you
just go back down it again. (Yes) Right? So like this is important to understand
because your mind thinks that it's doing productive thinking, but it's not doing
productive thinking. It's just thinking the same shit over and over again. So I
kind of think about thought loops like chewing gum. Like they're working working
working, but there's no nutrition. There's no actual resolution, and there's no
benefit. You're just chewing the same shit over and over and over again. (Okay)
The other thing is in your case like I would imagine that your thought loops
are focused on yourself. Right? They're about you. My thought loops are about me?..
I have to think about it, if that's true.. Umm So.. what are the thought loops I have?
Yes, so let's start there. Usually they have to do with, "Oh, leading back to everything
has no purpose" or something like that I think. (Okay, great) But then at the same
time, even when I'm happy, I don't mind the thought that "everything has no
purpose" So that's a strange -- it seems contradictory. (It, it's not.) It's not?
Okay tell me why -- It does seem contradictory. (Okay) Okay, so because this is -- Um, so let me ask you -- Okay, now we're gonna get weird Reckful. Do you believe that life -- what
do you think of -- what's your sense of like what life is? Umm, I'm an organism that uhh came to be from two
other organisms who (Sure) liked each other enough to (have a child) have a baby.
Yeah, and is that -- are you -- is that all you are? You're just a biological organism?
And I have consciousness which we can't really explain, "the hard problem". Okay
(Right?) Yeah, so what does that -- What do you think about your life? Like
what's the -- like, do you feel like your life has purpose? Most of the time "no", but
recently I've started to think "yes" because I realized I can start trying to
help other people who have had my same problems. So I relate to them and then I
hope by making this game I'm working on that they can find friendship and a
sense of community. Because I'm making an MMO (Okay) like a really..yeah.
Okay, that's awesome man! Things I wanted as a kid, yeah.
Okay, so I'm gonna just dive into Sanskrit for a second,
okay? So Sanskrit -- the the Yogis like back in ancient India, like thousands of
years ago, basically started to believe that the world was false. And the reason
that they started to believe the world was false is because they sort of
understood that like the sense organs can be falsified. So either (Yeah) through the
use of hallucinogens or dreams. But ultimately that the experience that they
have within a dream is actually the same experience that you have within reality. That even though a dream can be fake or real, YOUR experience of a dream is the
same as your experience of life. That you can feel suffering, you can feel joy, you
can feel hope, you can feel sorrow, (Yes that's true) you can feel abject terror. And so what they realized
is that like ultimately the foundation of reality is actually
consciousness and that the foundation of reality is experience and that the
external world is false. Yeah I've listened to the "case against
reality", maybe you've heard that? Dan Hoffman I think? Uh I haven't heard that one
in particular, but there's a lot of stuff from quantum mechanics that supports
this. I don't know if Dan Hoffman talks about that. (Okay)
But a good example of like understanding this from a quantum
mechanics perspective, which there's an argument against what I'm about to say,
which I'm happy to go into, people who are interested. But basically that
reality exists as a probability, and it's the act of observation that causes a
probability to collapse into a reality. Which is sort of a weird complicated
thing to say but -- Say it one more time? So, that reality actually exists as a
probability. Like reality is not static in that the act of observation causes a
probability to collapse into a reality. (Okay) So like the world exists as a
probability waveform, and when you observe something, that probability
disappears and it becomes a reality. (Okay!) Yeah, I mean I've read some quantum mechanics stuff like Sean Carroll or whatever. Yeah, so like Schrodinger's Cat I think
is the best example of this. But then (Yeah) there was this experiment called The Double Slit Experiment, which actually proved that observation -- That was really weird! It's bizarre! (Yeah!) What do you remember about it? Double slit experiment umm okay.. They shoot electrons through the two slits. If they look at the electrons, they
show up on the other side as like uhh -- in a in a certain pattern And if they
don't look at it, they show up in two different patterns. Yeah exactly. Yeah, so
they show up as an interference pattern if you don't look at which of the slits
the electron -- I mean, *the photon* goes through. Right? So it's like (Okay the photons, yeah) the bands of light and dark. (Yeah) And then, if you observe which phot -- which *slit* the photon goes
through, then the pattern on the other side disappears. So literally like
what you see depends on where you look! Like if I'm looking at the slit (Yes, it's bizarre!) then I only see one
point of light. And if I'm not looking at the slit, then I actually see an interference pattern. Right? It's crazy! (Yeah, it's bizarre!) So what's it -- what's your -- what's your
interpretation of it? That consciousness creates reality. It's what the Yogis have been saying for thousands of years. (Okay) That the act of
observation: that our consciousness has creative power. Now, (Okay) the interesting
thing is that if you -- so now we get to Sanskrit, and this is kind of a real
roundabout way of getting to this idea. So the Yogis actually came up with two
words for reality. One is Maya: Maya means "illusion", and the other is Lila: and Lila
means "play". And so interestingly enough both of these sort of imply a falseness
to the universe. But I think what's happening is on some sense you've had an
experience, either through psilocybin or other things -- and I suspect other things,
and we'll get to that later -- that has given you a sense that something about
the world is not real. And what happens (Okay) is when (I have had it many times, yeah) when you're happy - Yeah, we'll get to that. - when you're happy you can exist in a Lila state which is
like "it's no big deal that the world isn't real" It's play! Like "let's just
have a good time!" It's actually just like a video game! Like just because -- (It's like the experience machine!) Yeah, and just because a video game isn't real doesn't mean that we
can't enjoy it, right? In fact, quite the opposite: that's actually a big problem
for most of my audience. Yeah, you don't need to know -- you don't need to know how the game works even to enjoy (Absolutely!) playing it You know, you always are trying to figure
out how life works.. NOW we have to be careful. Because even though you can --
you can appreciate Lila, which is play, and you can appreciate that nothing in
the world is real, WHEN YOUR DEPRESSION ACTS UP -- and I want you to understand
that depression is like a pattern of thinking within your mind. It takes the
things that you know and distorts them. So it takes the fact -- It hijacks this
idea that you know that the world is like, not a real place, in some sense.
And then it sort of makes you feel like there's no purpose because nothing is
real. But that's an understanding that doesn't actually mean like anything bad.
It's just -- That's what the depression does. The depression hijacks your
thinking and takes the things that you know and spins them in a particular way
that like actually makes you suffer. Yes, but then I was also saying that even
when I'm happy, and I even if I thought reality was an illusion, I could still be
happy at those moments. Yeah! Absolutely! Right? But those are -- that's because when
you're able to step outside of depression, when you're able to step
outside of yourself. You can appreciate that like life can be happy and joyous,
even though it isn't real. But when your Depression kicks in, you
become nihilistic. So nihilism is this idea that like "life has no purpose and
no meaning so might as well fuck around" which actually isn't the case.
So first, Reckful, why don't you tell me a little bit about what happens in your
mind -- Any questions about this? No, that I can -- that I followed. I mean, okay, it
does follow that what we see as reality is not based reality for sure. Because if
you think how a different animal, let's say we look at an ant. They're not gonna
perceive reality anything similarly to how we do. They perceive reality in a way
that helps them survive. And we perceive in a reality in a way that helps us
survive, right? Let's say, we have to notice a lion running at us, or whatever,
and we have to notice motion more than other things, or like about you, back in
the day. And the people who actually saw too many things or saw based reality
wouldn't have survived, you know, if -- The natural selection would favor people
who just see certain things more -- Beautiful! So so now now that that segues
into an important point which is that your mind is designed to survive. It's
not actually designed to protect you from suffering. (Yes) Okay (Yeah) so this is one
of the most simple things that like, I think a lot of people -- I mean, I disagree
with a lot of my colleagues in the sense that my impression of a lot of mental
illness is that it's actually FUNCTIONAL, USEFUL mechanisms of our mind that (I
could believe that) that are kind of out of whack or haywire. So anxiety is a good
example of our mind's ability -- go ahead. Yeah, no, I agree with you. (WHY?) Because I was just saying on my stream earlier today that uh, anxiety actually could get passed on
as a trait from natural selection because it could help. Let's say you're
always worried someone's gonna kill you You could have, a thousand years ago,
survived because of that and that (Absolutely!) that trait could pass on. So let's just tap into a second what anxiety is. And I've talked a lot about anxiety, so we're gonna talk more about depression today. But what I
understand anxiety to be is that anxiety is simply your mind's ability to
look into the future and predict problems. That's all it is. (Okay) It's just the
future-predicting capability. And if you think about someone's experience of
anxiety, what happens is they look into the future and they predict a problem
And the possibility of that problem worries them so much that it sort of
controls their behavior. So if I'm afraid of looking like an idiot when I do
public speaking, that anxiety is actually trying to protect me. It's not trying to
fuck me over. It's trying to protect -- by the way, can I curse on your stream or? --
Do whatever the fuck you want, yeah. And so actually, all really anxiety --
Anxiety's trying to help you out. And the first thing to understand if you want to
conquer your anxiety is that, like it's trying to help you out. And then you just
have to understand that it's it's like a guard dog that is like way too sensitive.
So there are ways that you can calm it down, but the first thing that we need to
stop doing is demonizing our anxiety or trying to like root it out of us.
Because once we understand where it comes from, then we can try to put it
into context, we can try to help it. But let's talk a little bit more about
depression today. So tell me what your experience of depression is.
Okay, it's very hard very hard to explain. The easiest way to explain is I've had years
of my life like this, where I wake up every day, and I don't see a purpose to
doing anything. Well I don't see a purpose in getting out of bed. I don't
care if I stream or don't or if I go eat or don't At some point I get really
hungry. I'm like, okay I guess I have -- like I feel like I -- It forces me to kind of,
you know. (Yeah) But I don't really care one way or the other. And then I
start to think I don't care if I -- when I go to sleep, I don't care if I wake up.
I'd prefer not to, actually. The sleeping was the most peaceful part of my day.
Okay and how long would this like -- how long would this stretch last? Years. (With? -- Okay, so --)
I've had it since I was 14. And there's like 14 to 16.. And then I remember when I found photography,
I was like a little inspired for a little bit and then it went away. And
then maybe 17 to 20.. -- like, it goes for years, and then I'm happy for a little
bit, and then years, and then happy for a little bit. How long is your period of happiness?
My chat would know better than I do, but it's pretty short. I don't know.. I like -- two
months maybe? (Okay) Yeah, is that? -- You hear about people like that? Yeah, so I think I think this is a really common misconception. I think I think you're -- you
may have clinical depression, but I think what you're describing is not clinical
depression. So I'm gonna explain to you guys what clinical depression is. I think
your problem is that your life is empty. That's different. In fact, that's what we
were going to talk to the other person about today and we will. So I got a bunch
of questions about this because -- So you're saying you think I was diagnosed
incorrectly when they said they have bipolar type 2? You may have depression on top of that. But what I want you to understand is that like there are different flavors of
depression. One of them is a biological organic neurochemical kind of thing. (Okay) And
what I'm hearing from in -- but there are certain features of that that you -- you're not -- you don't really fit that bill. So I'm gonna describe what that is. So you may be depressed on top of being unhappy or having a life without purpose. (Okay) But those are two independent things and the whole point behind what what people
got interested in last week and what we're gonna finish up today is actually
perfect for you! Which is maybe why people are telling you to come on.
So I treat people with depression, (Yeah) and sometimes what happens is I treat them
for a while and they come into my office and they say like -- Okay, so I'll like
assess them for depression I'll be like, "Are you getting out of bed every day? Are
you able to do this? Are you able to concentrate? Are you able to go to work?" And they'll say, "Yeah, but I'm still depressed." And then I tell them, "Well
actually, like I don't think you're clinically depressed. Now you're just unhappy." And there's a difference between clinical depression and unhappiness or a
life without purpose. (Okay) And this is the tricky thing. It's like what's
happened is our society's become so mental health focused, that we've started
to describe all of these things as like mental pathologies. (Okay) But I think that this is like, your problem is that you're at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Are you familiar with that? (No) Okay, so Maslow basically said we have a
hierarchy of needs. That at the bottom we need like food and shelter, and then we
need community, and all that kind of stuff. And at the very top is something
called self-actualization. That at the end of the day, like we have a need to become like fully actualized human beings who like derive -- I mean, it's a
need for us to feel like we're accomplishing what we put our mind to. (Okay)
And so I think what you are is unfulfilled, and that you've probably
been inappropriate -- (I mean, that's true.) -- insufficiently challenged since you were
a teenager. And that life has not like given you anything that was worth
fighting for. That it's just like it's been like easy mode. Now you may be depressed on top of that, so let's talk about that for a second. So clinical depression is an episodic illness. That's the first thing to understand. So major depressive disorder *or* bipolar disorder is episodic. (Yeah) Which means that for periods of time, you're well. And then you enter a period of depression, which lasts two weeks to about one year. Maybe a little bit over a
year. And that you have a period of like and then it sort of naturally gets
better. Oh, one thing! Now I'm worried that, 'What
if I incorrectly remembered my past when saying I've gone years of being
unhappy?' That's very possible! And now I'm getting -- now I'm getting
misdiagnosed. (No, no --) Maybe I haven't gotten years.. maybe it's been one year. Sure, so that's possible so like I said I
don't think that -- How long -- how long do the happy periods -- would the happy periods be? It depends on the person, but, generally speaking, like I'm looking for
a few months to a year to even over a year, right? So I'm looking for like
somewhere between like four and six months of like a period of remission. Now
you could, like I said, you *could* have depression. You could have depression. I don't know that you don't, or bipolar type 2.
But what I'm saying is that like, generally speaking, sometimes I talk to
people, and they say, "I've been depressed since I was the age of 14." And if you've
constantly been depressed for 15 years, that's not how major depressive disorder
works. Because our body has-- No, because I've come -- I've come in and out of it. So I've come out of it when I like to started photography. I came out of it when I started liking, uh.. I guess World of Warcraft for a bit. Came out of it when --
like, little periods though -- I came out of it when -- I everytime I find -- But then I
think that could lead back to fulfillment. Every time I find this
'something' I really like, then I come out of it. For sure, so it could just be the
fulfillment thing you're saying. Well, so hold on, let's talk about this. So I
think you're onto something, but that your solution is half correct. (Okay) So why do you think it is that photography -- Like do you remember when you started doing
photography? Like, how old were you? I was sixteen. My dad bought me a camera for my birthday, and I remember taking a bunch of pictures of film camera. And then when I
got it developed, I looked at it. And I was like, "Oh, I really like this. This is fun."
And that's it. Nothing more to it than that. Okay um, how -- do you remember how you
felt before you got like.. -- Tell me about like what high school was like for you.
Early high school. Man, it's kind of hard to dig deep into.. Okay. I do remember I, like most students, didn't enjoy being in class. I had a few friends outside of class though. We played -- I started liking playing guitar a little bit. And some of
them played guitar a little. Um, I liked that. There were little periods of enjoyment
here and there. We talked about what kind of music we liked, like high schoolers do
I guess. Did you (Umm..) do you have fond memories of being a freshman in high
school? Some! Some memories are not bad.. overall my thought about school is that
I didn't like it but I can remember some good things what I didn't like about it
being in class but I remember liking I did like some I played guitar in front
of a bunch of people like an unplugged concert thing during high school I
remember liking mm-hmm so what didn't you like about
class it was boring uh the things I was learning weren't things that were super
stimulating to me and sometimes I already knew them but not always I
didn't always know them yeah sometimes I just didn't know them but they weren't
what I was interested in huh school was easy school was pretty easy yeah III was
uh yeah I had good grades and SAT and all that yeah yeah
so we're gonna talk more about how you were insufficiently challenged because I
still think that's your problem but we'll get to that
so tell me a little bit about so it doesn't sound like I'm not hearing
anything about depression when you were in high school you said 14 but you're
not describing anything to me that oh yeah no cuz it's hard for me to really
dig deep and remember I mean I listen okay I remember I listened to a lot of
sad music I was a lot of people who killed listen I was idolizing a lot of
people who killed themselves okay at the time because I was listening like
Nirvana and then Elliott Smith and then I don't know a bunch of other I can't
remember but I mean sounds like you were yeah yeah it could be yeah I know I was
but the lyrics were very relatable to me okay what was relatable I mean lyrics I guess just this overall lack of purpose
and meaning something to something it's it I kind of really have to I feel
like I'm not doing justice to my own life you know to my own memories I can't
remember exactly well you're not gonna be able to write so yeah yeah so I I'm
I'm kind of digging around and and you're not expected like I don't
remember much about when I was 14 like you know people don't really remember
much about when they're 14 and that's okay it's just I'm trying to figure out
where where the money is and it sounding like okay so when I was 16 okay when I
was 16 I I tried to kill myself okay so when I
when I was 16 I uh I took 20 to 22 sleeping pills and they drank a bottle
of wine and I tied a plastic bag over my head and I fell asleep and I just woke
up later and I had ripped the bag off my head and I was alive and and uh I
worried and asked do you remember what you were feeling when you tried to kill
yourself he was really dumb I there was a game I
was playing called a Sean's khalaf when I was 10 when I was 16 and then that
game was no longer popular no one was playing it and I'd know when to play
with a car - yes right know as an MMORPG okay and it started dying because of all
the Warcraft and no one else was on to play anymore and I felt like the only
thing I cared about and the only thing I'd practice my whole life and really
loved was irrelevant okay yeah great I mean not great but I think I'm starting
to see a pattern okay so great so let's just think about that for a second
reckful let's think about that right yeah what what do you think was going on
in your head there so I think now that you you're leading me to the answer but
the Ashlyn stall was giving me fulfillment and you know a place to try
as hard as I could and be competitive and whatever and meet friends and all
these things all these natural human desires was it hard then uh it was hard
yeah yeah and then uh then it went away and I didn't have that anymore and I was
unfulfilled uh-huh and then when did you get your camera it was around a little
after that yep yeah round yeah and then I started like a photography so tell me
about the photography it's really hard when it's about artistic things I can't
remember like the feet have a feeling and the while like I don't know but I
was in a pictures for a while and then my parents took me on a trip to Europe
to show me where they used to live in Switzerland and
neighbouring countries I took a lot of pictures there and I came back and I I
got a bunch of my pictures printed out and then I walked around a South
Hollywood and like then to art galleries I showed them my pictures and one of
them put my pictures up in the gallery mm-hm and then I remember feeling good
yeah did that happen and and when did the depression come back after the
pictures could have been around the time with the gallery because everyone liked
other people's pictures way more than mine I don't remember exactly what yeah
so I don't know if it was in a weird way I don't know if it's because do you
remember feeling like you were you had done a really good job with the pictures
in the gallery yes for sure and then you know everyone else's pictures were
really edited and it was annoying to me cuz I thought mine were better but
everyone liked the other what's better yeah yeah so okay and then what was
another thing that brought you out of your depression
I don't okay I don't remember the next part because I start playing World of
Warcraft but I don't member ever being happy while playing World of Warcraft I
played it for so many years yeah I remember I remember being really happy
at any moment even when I was at the top okay so I want you to so I think your
periods of happiness like when you came out of your depression those sound to me
like they're not dealing with the underlying problem I think what happened
is you had opportunities for you to distract yourself from the underlying
depression like you can get into something but only for a time and you
can only distract yourself for so long and then what happens is is one of two
things that happens either one is that like something takes that away from you
or oddly enough I think the thing that the reason that that photography may
have lost is it its interest is this is gonna sound really bizarre is not
because other people's photography was better than yours because something
tells me that when someone is better than you at something
that actually pull actually want to try it's a drive yeah what happened your
fucking problem was that you were young you were how old 16 and someone put up
your artwork in a gallery in Hollywood and that is you won the game
that doesn't mean you lost that means you fucking won okay
and I feel like I wanna be okay yeah I know you didn't but I think the real
problem there cuz it's weird right like you would think that I would you would
think so we have to just understand that like we would think certain things but
we have to look at the data of your life and interpret it what was disappointing
what got you out of photography or when it Lots it lost its luster was actually
at the height of your career and you could have kept going it wasn't like him
it wasn't like you walked around and you dropped it because no one displayed your
artwork like that makes more sense like that's a loss right I walked around and
I showed it to a bunch of people and no one displayed it which is like that's
not even that unusual because you're fucking 16 you took some pictures yeah
yeah who's gonna display your artwork in a gallery in Hollywood when you're 16
and you're just like you got a camera months ago well it turns out that
someone will because you're really good at photography because you do a good job
at things that you apply yourself to and that you find challenging and when
you're engrossed in a challenge you don't have to worry about the fact that
your life is like its core meaningless because you can find you can find some
sense of like external challenge and it pulls you out of yourself it pulls you
out of yourself when you're doing photography well that was really
accurate and the thing reckful is that you don't like being yourself and so
when you can pull yourself out of being yourself it's an amazing feeling because
you don't have to be rekted right because reckful is life isn't worth
living like you can wake up today and you can eat or not eat but who the fuck
cares it's just reckful is life but when
you're doing photography you're like you're not reckful anymore right you're
like taking a picture you become kind of like one with the picture and then the
problem is like once you get good at that then you're like back to being
I feel like you've conquered that and so you're like okay well now what so we
gotta understand like what is it about you that makes you feel like like living
your life is not worth living and we're gonna talk for a second I'm gonna get to
that in a second but I want to talk about psilocybin
so what psilocybin looks but so Simon does is it takes you away from reckful
that's why you want it right because you love actively love your shirt whatever
okay but like so so your thought loops in the depression and stuff like that
that all exists within reckful like wreck flows life you have this ego this
thing called a hunger which thinks that your your life is fundamentally like
meaningless and what psilocybin does is it takes you actually outside of your
ego we have a sense of identity that is based on like who we are and like by who
we are like things that go on a resume so you identify as like gender or you
know like you're your you have a certain like professional career you have a
certain age you have a name these are the things that you identify with and
when you're taking a picture you're none of those things does that make sense
okay yeah it does uh I don't like my identity
so you're saying yeah your life and so anytime you have an opportunity so when
you're playing music like you're no longer like a particular age you're just
playing music you become one with the music you become one with the rock Rafi
but this the distraction pulls me out of my immersion in a first-person
experience whatever yeah absolutely and that's exactly what psilocybin does
right so psilocybin is a substance that causes the walls of the self to break
down yeah so whether whether it's psilocybin whether it's music whether
it's photography or and and this is the other interesting thing is you're
finding purpose and why are you finding purpose again what do you like about
what you're doing I like I like that I'm trying to give people something
I wanted as a kid what is what is the who's the focus on who are you thinking
about just few people have an experience yeah so I'll tell you reckful listen
carefully now your depression you're trying to cure the depression that is
growing within kids outs out there today you're trying to protect them from what
happened to you yeah that how does that feel feels good yeah feels meaningful
yeah good is an understatement the understatement of the fucking year it is
vital it is crucial you must do this thing yeah I think it's the fucking
understatement of the year when you say yeah it's like it like gives me a reason
to wake up in the morning like no this is this isn't our MA I've talked about
Tara you may not know what I'm talking about people who watch regularly this
isn't her mo you guys are seeing it right this is like this is duty or
responsibility it's not something that you're doing this is the other thing the
really powerful thing about this and we'll get to the roots of your
depression the really powerful thing about this is that you're not thinking
about yourself anymore I don't know I'd like to feel selfless like that but I
don't know that it's true you know I'd like that your thought yeah well we'll
get to how you're thinking about yourself so I think now we also
understand the roots of your depression because the person if you want to
understand why you're depressed you have to like really envision who is it that
you're trying to help like all of the qualities when you're saying that you
wanted to give people an experience that you didn't have as a kid I don't think
you're talking about playing a fucking video game I think you're talking about
being alone I think you're talking about being abandoned and you don't want
people to feel the way that you felt and so you're trying to make the world a
better place maybe what are you feeling right now I
don't know it's Tapatio automatically I am yeah
I'm not thinking anything take a moment it's nice to feel something yeah it's
kind of weird right because you're crying so most people associate that as
like a thing that they don't want to feel no I liked it yeah how do you feel
what do you feel in your body feel like um in my body I don't know how to
describe it I don't know I I feel I feel like I just passed something yeah and uh
kind of hopeful I guess yeah future maybe yeah I I think I
imagine you feel a little bit lighter but we what we can call it is levelling
a little bit you just leveled up yeah okay you want to keep going or you want
to take a break no it's good uh what we can keep talking but what what what
games have you played what's your how did you know my well stuffer I'm because
I so I played wow like in vanilla and Burning Crusade Brinker shows good why
are we talking older you why are you asking me questions about yourself
myself now of all times what do you think I don't know you tell
me that's us taking a break so I think you've had a lot and now you I think you
need to step away from what you're feeling for a little bit and already
your mind is returning to normal right you're returning to normal reckful or
your thoughts like your mind had shut down for a little bit and as you start
to ask me questions about myself which I'm happy to answer your mind is gonna
start functioning again and that feeling is slowly going to
away uh-huh so shall we take a break what do you mean by break like uh
we're just gonna talk about anything no no about whatever so what I mean by
break is like you just went through something that was like a little bit
powerful and a little bit emotional and that's a strange state of mind to be in
you didn't know what the fuck was happening and it was like it was like
you went underwater and now we're coming up for air so if
you want to we can go back underwater like if you want me to just do that
again we can do that again and you can learn more or not to blow my nose yeah
okay yeah you could talk people okay I mean that was intense yeah I know I'm still live on stream I
just need to process for a second to okay so okay so I should introduce
myself to stream so my name is dr. olive kitteridge I'm a psychiatrist
practicing in Boston Massachusetts my main area of interest is technology and
video game addiction but I have a kind of a different background I spent maybe
I should wait until rectals back but I spent a few years about seven years
studying in India to become a monk and then spent about seven years studying to
become a monk and then ended up going to medical school and became a psychiatrist
if you guys want a Harvard Andy I'm I trained at Harvard Medical School and
I'm faculty at Harvard Medical School which a lot of people seem to get a kick
out of and my main area of interest until about one year ago was
incorporating like Eastern medicine like Eastern ideas and philosophy so studying
a lot of like yoga and meditation and Buddhism Hinduism some of the more
esoteric spiritual practices as well into mental health treatment and my
experience has been that like our Western understanding of mental health
is just wow fully incomplete and there are a lot of reasons for that
and I've had a lot of success through helping people kind of like reckful by
sort of getting to some root issues which is what what the Eastern system
kind of conceptualizes like Western medicine thinks about depression is like
something that you just treat with an SSRI like you just give them medication
and you do some therapy and then like it's just a disease that you live with
for the rest of your life like there's this idea in Western medicine that once
you get diagnosed with depression you have depression your entire life I don't
believe that I mean I think some people do but in my experience I've had some
people in my practice who have had bipolar disorder or who like or off of
medications and they have these sort of really powerful spiritual or
psychological experiences that really get to the root of where their illness
comes from and by getting to that root you can actually like have someone have
a transformative experience which is what I believe
and in in reckful x' case i think that you know he may fit criteria for a
bipolar disorder type ii but i think the basic problem here is that we're gonna
talk to him in a minute you ready to dive in again yeah okay I
kind of wanted to hear what my basic problem was but it's better I don't know
no no it's fine yeah so we're gonna get to that so I think basically like
reckful x' challenges that something like i don't
know if you guys saw this but there's something really powerful about what
he's trying to do and that comes from somewhere right like it's not like you
just waked like he's not trying to help people with like autism he's not trying
to help people with Down syndrome he's not trying to help people with who were
you know like victims of like genocide or the Holocaust he's trying to help
like lonely kids find meaning in community and support and I think that's
that's the route so my question for you reckful is like what was your childhood
like tell me about your childhood okay so I have some early memories of playing
games with my brothers I like those a lot and I remember even just watching I
would try to stay up late and watch them play certain computer games and then two
brothers yeah - I had two brothers yeah and then how was the age difference ones
ten years older ones 15 years older okay so I would just watch them play games I
remember like I was really young like four or five and I couldn't beat a level
in Doom and then my brother went in and like edited the
code of the game so the ceilings were too low for the monsters to run around
they were running in place and I could just go through and beat the level which
I still enjoyed doing yeah of course which brother did that guy my brother
who passed away yeah yeah and when I was six that happened I remember seeing like
hospital cars and for some reason I remember seeing a lady my dad worked
with walk out of the house and I was like my thought at the time was is that
my new mom I remember thinking some I knew something was wrong but I don't
know what happened yeah so hold on a second so you approached the house from
the outside yeah cuz my other brother Gary he drove me Oh to an arcade cuz
something bad had happened I get but he was crying while I was playing arcade
games that I know it was wrong and then we came back home but the hospital car
was still there with the plus side and then everyone was crying I don't
remember too many specifics I mean when I came home from school my mom would
always be crying or not not there she'd be in her room then I'd play games okay
yeah I'd play like Super Nintendo yeah and it seems like your memory is pretty
good when it comes to this well that that yeah that memory is really strong
that with the hospital car mm-hmm but the other I don't remember like coming
home from school specific days I remember before that happen I used to
get so excited to see my brothers when I came over from school I'd be like his
guy home as Gary home you know and me excited to play games with them
um yeah and and that was gone after yeah yeah and yeah my my brother other
brother Gary he never left his room anymore and he was he'd be playing
guitar I'd hear and play guitar so um what do you think life was like for you
after that it's very lonely for sure yeah yeah it's hard for me remember any
more specifics like day-to-day from what I'm six but I just yeah yes I I know I
play games a lot yeah so I mean this is gonna sound like kind of a weird
question maybe a leading question but I can see a certain beautiful purpose with
five year old you in your life what was your project old me yeah what was five
year old his purpose fuck I don't know I just wanted to play I want to be as good
as my brothers to play games with them something I think yeah right it's like
simple but it was it was pure and it was simple and it was it was like it was
absolutely there right like you were excited about that like that's what
that's what you live for like yeah and you would like watch them play yeah yeah
yeah yeah that's okay what are you feeling now I don't know it just happens
automatically yeah so close your eyes for a second okay tell me what you feel
in your body something here yep I'm really bad at describing feelings yes
that's why we're doing this we're gonna teach you right now
okay okay what are you feeling in your chest where people describe this as a
tightness maybe a tightness and I keep I realize I need to breathe more steadily
okay so your breathing is erratic ya know what what's happening so as you
notice the feeling what happens to it it's going away yeah right and what just
what just changed with your breathing your breathing is different it's more
regular yeah yeah what's happening to the feeling it's going away yeah another
way to describe yeah so yeah but it's going away like would you say it's
loosening what I say it's what loosening loosening yeah the tightness is
loosening mm-hmm I'm relaxing mm-hmm yeah okay so now keep your eyes closed
okay so tell me a little bit about five-year-old you and what he wanted
from life he wanted to get out of what school or even when you're 5
kindergarten yeah you wanted to get out of kindergarten as fast he could like
he'd come home play games with his brothers yeah and I'm gonna say
something kind of weird so reckful I think you love five-year-old you a lot
and I think you have a lot of hurt because something really bad happened to
him like you love that kid and something that was just terrible happened to him do you see how like that kid is not you
like that's like it's not right that's a different no but you love him so much
and the problem here is that you're trying to protect him you try so hard to
protect him and take away what happened to him but you just can't do it and you
don't know how to help him yeah what does he need sure
I don't know come to terms with reality nope no just think about it for a second
like what does he need like what do you want to protect him from I have no idea
okay so but but you understand that he's different and you understand that
something happened to him what happened to him let's start there mm you got
quickly shoved out of his comfort zone of family and things he cared about yeah
I think so I'm not I'm not buying its owners of
your tournament yeah I was trying to yeah so so what happened I went
different it's way more powerful than comfort oh it's true how do I worry well
he had he had family uh-huh and he didn't absolutely there you go right
it's so simple yeah so simple it's not fuckin comfort
zone and what do you want for him what does he need family absolutely absolutely it's nice and simple it is
yeah the things that fuck us over always are now this is the really profound
thing reckful is that while this seems like it fucked you over in a sense of
course it did but in a sense it didn't this is your Karma
this is what happened to you and this is what's made you the person that you are
and I think that this is like as long as that feeling is there like this feeling
of loss and loneliness like that your purpose when you saw that that that
medical van or ambulance with the Plus on on the side that was the day you lost
your purpose and for a time you found activities that can help you get past
that you can forget about it but that's the day that like your life
changed right like every reason that you had to wake up in the morning was to go
to class so that you could come home from class and spend time with Diane
Gary and then one day all of that changed and it changed you presumably
irrevocably but I don't think that that's true I think you can get Pat's
past this and I think your lack of purpose is like this is where it comes
from I'm feeling a little better have you talked to anyone about this
yeah but I uh I didn't let myself go deep in it I guess I think I cuz it was
always most the time I was it was when I was 16 when I want to talk to people
yeah I think I was a little more closed off than I am now yep all you need is
the Internet to watch yeah well I became really open with everything because I
realized to help me at some points I guess yeah yeah I think can help others
too yeah so why are you making this game reckful I always wanted to make a game
sure but this reminds me as soon as I said that have you seen the split brain
experiment video where there's a guy on his left side he says pick up the
Rubik's Cube and he picks it up and then he lets us hand it to your other hand
and then he they ask the right his right side why are you holding a Rubik's Cube
and he says I always wanted to learn how to solve one of these which makes me
think a lot of times when people are describing something they're doing and
why they're doing it it's inaccurate absolutely so I don't know brilliant I know I
always wanted yeah yeah I know I always wanted to concave for sure when I
started playing an MMO when I was 10 just cuz Gary wanted to make a Pokemon
MMO and we were doing research on other MMOs and then I ended up playing it for
seven six seven years from 1999 so he's got a footy I always thought it was a
cool idea to make a game I started stream on Twitch because some game
company made a game called Forge said that advertises her game I could work
for them or something or you know help design the game and that you know didn't
their game didn't succeed so they never hired me and then now I finally can make
my own game just you know because I'm steering for a long time and can fund it
yeah so reckful I this is really important to understand okay and I'm
gonna reference some stuff that I've talked about before so I I want you to
understand that everything that's happened in your life has brought you to
this point you've always wanted to make a game but that's a desire that's just
like man I've always wanted to make a game cuz I'm a gamer and that's kind of
cool like I also want to like I've wanted to make games like I'm interested
in that I bet a lot of people are but what got you to where you are like like
it has to be the right game the Stars have to align for you to make the game
that you need to make and there's been one really big star missing which is
like purpose and I think the reason that your this game like this game is
different it's got to be because you're trying to solve something with this game
you know and that's gonna give you the strength that you need to actually solve
it yeah I'm a little worried I don't know that I'll initially solve it on
first release right away but I want to you know always be patching and
iterating yet to get there yeah yeah we can talk about that more but I'm you
know I'm not worried about I mean that's just yeah so I think the main thing here
is that you're trying to do something really important
right and I think you're not you're not making the game for some like faceless
kid out there yeah you're saying I'm making the game for a kid like me who
wanted something to go home to and friends just spend time with wait a way
to spend time with friends online and have community and stuff yes which is
true for sure yeah I mean I would take it even one step further I don't think
it was for a game for a kid like you oh you just saying I'm making it for me not
for the you today me as a kid yeah yeah that's where it comes from what do you
think about that that's really accurate I think yeah when you say it I mean
rings true yeah yeah right so I think this comes down to so if you want to get
to the roots of your depression you've got a you've got to help that kid like
within yourself you cut out you don't get to the root what a great time to cut
out right yes to get to the root I think you've got it you've got a help you've
got to help you right that's what you that's what you need like that's where
the hurt is that's where the depression comes from that's where the loss of
meaning in your life comes from because like meaning was taken away from you had
plenty of meaning until one day you didn't and all you've managed to do is
distract yourself and find relief through distraction and you're good at
what you do and you're ambitious and you're intelligent so sometimes you can
trick yourself into thinking that a distraction is purpose but it's not and
I've questioned ya know how did your purpose come to be wanting to help
people I know I'm curious to know Christine are you talking about mine
yeah yeah so my story is kind of funny so I played way too many video games in
high school I mean it probably as a kid even before that but it really started
to become a problem in high school and then after after my first year of
college I had less than a two point and then for the next year I also like
kind of failed out of college I was on academic probation and my dad who's a
really fantastic guy was like something's got to change and they've
tried everything they'd like punish me like sent me to a military school and
like all this kind of crap and I just wasn't getting my shit together and he
said so you have to go to India and I said okay so the summer after my
sophomore year I remember I still remember cuz my memory is clear about
this - we were kind of talking like late into the night and this conversation was
different because like usually when I was I would like fail stuff like they
would yell right like I'd get punished or they'd like be like you know I'm
fucking up but this time my dad was just sort of not really resigned but it was
like a really like problem-solving conversation and we kind of like I felt
like we were on the same team and he was like look we got to do something about
this because this is not working so I went to India or 20 or 20 or so you're
20 yeah so 20 20 or 21 and I went to India and I stayed at this place called
an ashram and an ashram is like a monastery so I spent three months
studying yoga and meditation and absolutely loved it and what I loved
about it is that we we study all kinds of stuff we study physics we study
mathematics we study history we study sociology we don't study ourselves like
even if you study psychology it's about like experiments about other people it's
not like how you work it's not like why do I lack meaning in life like how can I
actually find the answer to that where does meaning come from how does
our mind function so in your case the root of your depression is something
called a some scar which I'll explain later and until that some scar gets
dissolved you're gonna continue to be depressed and this is why you can have
periods of like distraction and whatnot and you can fit clinical criteria for
depression and all that good stuff but the end of the day you have this some
scar that formed the day that you saw that plus sign or maybe the next day
when you realize that when you went home I think the some scar formed the day
that you actually realized which which was your older brother guy or Gary guy
so one day you actually realize that like guy is never gonna be home when you
come home and that's I think when this um scar form
and so it was a system to understand like who you are and how you work like
where desires come from where did desires go to like all this different
stuff about the self and I loved it and so I decided to become a monk I went to
my teachers and I said hey I want to become a monk and they said that's
fantastic come back when you're 30 and finish a doctoral degree and we'll take
you so I went back to the US and decided okay if I want to become a monk then I
have to finish college and then I have to like get a doctoral degree so but you
okay but you had a purpose so you probably did it yeah you finished
college so I finished college every summer I went back and studied in India
over December break so I had spent like four months a year in India for the next
seven years with the goal of becoming a monk ended up meeting my wife got
confused because I was like oh I want to become a monk but I'm really into this
girl and all this stuff so decided your mics cutting in and out a little bit I'm
following the whole conversation I don't know why it's probably cuz I'm maybe the
thresholds a little so met my wife and a couple years later decided that like the
monk path wasn't the right path for me or more importantly realized that you
don't have to be to be a monk to be spiritual then ultimately being a monk
is not what you wear it's actually all about your internal experience so the
way that you deal with your own desires the way that you deal with your own
ambitions the way you deal with your own ego and that for me still coming out Oh
weird sorry is it cutting out for everyone
cutting out for everyone right oh it's no it's the discord people are saying oh
weird maybe we can change the server we're on or something
I'll try to change it we're on us-south let's try us alright and then we're back
mister escort okay so um decided not to become a monk because ultimately I
realized like you can be a monk monk is like like it was for me it was all about
ego it was all about like Oh like I was a failure at life so like the way that
is waged my ego was by saying oh like regular life isn't for me so I didn't
have to fail if I became a monk because I'm truly spiritual and I'm not for this
material world it's all a bunch of bullshit ultimately I realized that if I
are you sure yeah you think it was much thinking you were trying to escape the
chance of a loot Lee absolutely okay right because it's it's it's easy to
like escape from your failure in college if you were not meant for like the
material world and I was like better than that I was meant for the spiritual
world because I'm deeply spiritual and I'm not gonna run in this rat race and I
don't care about grades and all these fucking peons out there that are living
a material life I'm better than them I'm gonna become a monk then I realize that
was a load of bullshit that that's yoga that there are two kinds of ego there's
regular ego and then there's the subtler more devious ego which is the ego of
having no ego look at how spiritual I am you know is
that that that whole like so ended up doing neuroscience research so I've
always been kind of a skeptic and was curious about like what was happening in
my brain when I was learning these things so started doing neuroscience
research ended up going to medical school and then decided that I wanted to
become a psychiatrist and that I was going to incorporate like some of these
Eastern perspectives on mental health - like psychiatric care and teaching
people how to meditate and all that good stuff and then it's funny so how tarmo
works because then life sort of threw me an interesting curveball which was while
I was training I started asking some of my like professors and stuff so I
trained at Mass General Hospital and MacLaine which are both Harvard Medical
School teaching affiliates in the number one psychiatric hospital and all this
good stuff no more in hospital in the country all that jazz so I was
surrounded by a lot of brilliant people and I
started asking them I was like what do you guys think about video game
addiction and no one has a fucking clue right so if we think about the leaders
in the field in the fields in general if we think about like leaders in the
fields of like finance like world leaders leaders in the field of medicine
they're like all in their 50s at a minimum and so I realized like when one
of my supervisors who's a brilliant psychoanalyst said yeah I think the
reason that people play too many video games is the same reason they get
tattoos I was like lady what the fuck are you talking about she has no idea
and that's when it hit me that like no one in psychiatry like has played a
video game like all these Chiefs of Psychiatry and you know like head of the
department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and like Yale and Hopkins
and Harvard like none of these people make sense yeah they just they've never
played a video game so realize that like oh it's got to be me because who else is
gonna do it right and I think like that's what's special about you're
nodding right why are you nodding I'm nodding because this is a nice sense of
purpose for you to have and you can relate the people who play games because
you play games yourself I think the other reason being is because you get it
right it's gotta be you reckful oh it's gotta be me know something about you
talking about you and your MMO it's gotta be you oh no I was thinking it's
gotta be you yeah but I'm saying that like the same guys yeah yeah so you're
nodding with understanding so if you go back and you watch this video
you're passively listening until I said that I was anyway that's my possibly
listening possibly listening it sounds like I wasn't really immersed but I was
really immersed yes IIIi don't passive listening is not you weren't paying
attention but a passive just means I wasn't yeah giving back body like yeah
so I think there's something about that statement with which resonated with you
which caused you to to have some more body language it could be again this
Rubik's Cube thing where I'm trying to explain something that happened and it's
not accurate I mean at the end of the day I could be over-interpret if you
haven't seen that video you need to see it it's it's crazy corpus callosum people have their corpus
callosum severed do all kinds of cool things
so then I about in September of 2018 I guess it's a little over a year ago I
actually made the mistake of just randomly posting on Reddit and I said
I'm a psychiatrist that's interested in video game addiction ask me anything so
the post ended up hitting the front page and I started getting like inundated
with calls so like I'd get like people didn't know
how to find me so I started getting like paged I have a pager right because
doctors have pagers nowadays like it's Austin drug dealers were the only ones
left with pagers I don't even know if drug dealers do anymore yeah so so I
started getting paged and people were calling me and emailing me and I
realized like there's just no way that I can help like I'd been working with
gamers for years but there's just no way that I can help like every person out
there and I've got to do like I've got people more and so I'd sort of set
myself up to kind of be like the next Deepak Chopra or something like that I
was like very like ambitious and and you know I had a lot of like in this way
right now you're a o e helping people absolutely
that's exactly what this one yeah it's AoE right yeah so I realized that I
can't like single-target this shit it's just not gonna work like yeah after the
AMA I probably got hundreds if not thousands of requests for help and and
like from all over that all over the fucking place like some dude reached out
to me from Singapore and was like hey can you come to Singapore and like talk
to us cuz we're struggling and I was like sure but I don't know how or why
and and just gets all these random so most even more bizarre is I got a I got
an email a couple weeks ago from two psychologists that worked for the
Serbian military and they're like hey can you help us like you teach us how to
treat video game addiction and I was like yeah I can try so you're absolutely
right that it needs to be a OE right but like not even just a OE and like one
like I need like a global AOE like server whine like a surfer wide virus is
what I need yeah YouTube yeah so we have YouTube and
twitch and that's why I started streaming so I started streaming about
two and a half months ago and you know was advised against doing that by a lot
of people in like many of my colleagues and stuff like that because though I can
get sued and all that good stuff and and talked to attorneys and things like that
so hopefully I don't get sued so I'm not really just delivering medical care but
you know what happens if someone comes on stream and then kills themselves or
something like that I mean I you know I think at the end it I'll try not to kill
myself anytime soon for you yeah thank you I appreciate that I'm serious no
problem I actually I haven't thought about killing myself since I think yeah
I believe that if you if you do happen to have those thoughts again feel free
to reach out you have my discord and yeah I will say you know you're you can
die but not until you've done what you need to for that five-year-old like
unless you do that first you're just gonna have to come back and fix that
problem later death is not I mean so in my religion and through some of my
experiences through meditation I really do understand I believe in things like
reincarnation and and I think the trick but yet going this is where you're gonna
what's the word you're gonna divide your audience that's
fine yeah I know so I so I I also say a lot of things on the stream that are
based in science this is not one of them so I try to draw a distinction between
you know what I believe but I think ultimately like once you meditate you
start to have experiences and then like I can't shake I don't I don't logically
believe in reincarnation it's based on experience so I there are certain
techniques of meditation and stuff where you can remember your past lives and
things like that and I've just seen too much consciousness is pretty weird
absolutely I didn't put it past consciousness that you know I mean how
did it just happen in this organism or in that organism so so uh it could it
could be that there's no organism at all there's making shit up
there's a lot of weird shit I think you know I don't scientifically believe in
reincarnation I don't think it makes sense logically but like once you have
some experience it just it just feels so real is the best way that I can put it
is it a possible hallucination of my mind absolutely but that's a
conversation for a different day kind of how I got to my thermo so now I realize
that like they're gamers out there that need help and that the number of gamers
who need help is like astronomical that for the first time mental health has
surpassed cardiovascular disease and cancer as the number one cause of
morbidity and mortality in the United States that for the firt you have a
little bit of a tick tick there you well like searching for information in your
head or something like uh stats like that you you roll your eyes a little I'm
just telling you you probably don't want to have it yeah why not um why not why
don't you want to have this tick I mean it's up to you yeah maybe you do I don't
care but I'm just I was just letting you know yeah that's okay I tend to me I
have a lot of facial expressions that I that I tend to be pretty transparent
about and if I'm scanning my memory I think it's fine for people to understand
that I'm scanning my memory we're not playing poker true I do play
some poker so I wouldn't want to do yeah it's it's in my professional interest to
actually show what's on my face not conceal it so I tend to be different
from other psychiatrists in that way in the sense that like a lot of people try
to be a blank slate I just show what's on my face I see the blank slate does
suck I've talked to a lot of people in Slate I think it's stupid I mean okay
actually that's kind of judgmental I I just don't think it's for me I'll put it
that way I think some people you know I get that they want to do with that we
could say stupid that's fun so yeah we were talking about her money yeah so I
mean now I I realize like I just need to help people and that mental health is
getting worse in this country and I think part of the reason for that so the
other interesting thing that's happened recently is life expectancy between
ages of 25 and 64 has gone down for the first time suicide suicide is a big part
of it suicide is increased by 50% in teenagers over the last decade
so like Justin it makes a lot of sense they're constantly comparing themselves
other people on yeah so I think technology and stuff absolutely so
social media has really started to prey on certain like aspects of our
psychology that were kind of unaware of and so my sense is that like the field
of mental health needs to be addressed way more quickly and are in a way
broader sense and what I mean by this is like people need to understand some
fundamentals about how their mind works like I think it's infuriating that you
go to a psychologist and you ask them how does my mind work and they're not
gonna give you an answer like there are answers I think there are very simple
answers like I think your problem is that you have a some scar most people's
problems are that you have this kind of ball of undigested emotion that lurks
beneath the surface and exerts its influence on your mind it's like you've
you've had a debuff since the age of six in that deep office no she's called
depression and there are some times where you can get temporary buffs like
learning how to play guitar or like I like that elegy yeah and so you've just
got this fucking debuff and the thing is you had the debuff for so long that you
think it's like it's debuff sucks by the way absolutely I hate and and and you
think it's some part of like you think you you got it during character creation
you think it's you right because when you get diagnosed with type two bipolar
that's like during character creation like you picked a trait to give you
yourself extra character points and you're like I'm picking type two bipolar
and I get five more character points and I'm gonna I'm gonna pick like good it
Wow who the fuck would pick that yeah but
but the cool thing is it's not it's not static right I believe and I could be
wrong and and maybe you're stuck with this for the rest of your life but I
think you can get significantly better and I think it's like right beneath the
surface man like I'm good I'm starting to believe it I'm sorry I'm good at my
job but I mean like 15 minutes dude 15 minutes is what it took and it's just
right there and it's so big that's why it's so easy to get to
because you have this whole you have this whole like iceberg
and it's just like right beneath the surface and if you if you resolve
something it's not just about grief it's not just losing your brother but it's
like shattering your perception of like what life is about like life became
meaningless to you after that because that's what you that's what life was
about and then suddenly like that's no longer on the table you give a kid a
purpose in life you give his life like because that's the thing about the child
right it's such a simple and pure purpose and then you yank it away it's
not complicated it's not complex it doesn't have different shades so it can
be shattered in an instant and then it's completely broken if you lose your
purpose at the age of 30 that's different because you have different
dimensions of your life at that point you have something to fall back on but
you didn't have anything to fall back on because that's all it was
and then your other brothers say it in his room all the time
mm-hmm right not his fault was just I realize my my just was thinking of my
parents are probably watching this that's fine so that's interesting yeah I
mean they're welcome to come on to but that's it's nice anyway yeah and and I
don't think it's anyone's fault right and there's there's other stuff here
which if you want to have a conversation one day about forgiveness and whether
your brother deserves forgiveness or whether you've forgiven him that's
probably an important crime oh I definitely know I don't blame him at all
okay because I know what it's like to go through day by day having no desires and
suffering the whole time and for it you just want it to be over
yeah and I don't I don't blame her yeah not even a little bit so questions
reckful other people know you did a really good job you're you're good at
what you do what do we do good I'm happy to hear you say that but what did we do
you just talked me through my problems and helped me find them okay nice I made some realizations about myself
and it gives me a little more purpose in the future good a lot a lot a lot of
yeah so I just want you to remember that when you feel depressed like it's not
that those feelings aren't real and there's a lot of science that suggests
that it's not just to some scar right because you have a family history of it
there's probably some genetic component to it there's something going on in your
neurotransmitters which is absolutely real you know but these are just sort of
different like dimensions of the self and so you can have that biological
stuff going on and you can sort of have what I would call sort of like the roots
of your depression or spiritual they're not even psychological and that you have
you have an unfulfilled governme you have something that you owe to the the
six year old you and all of the kids who could be that six year old you and you
have to help the world become a place where like that kid like you want to
build the safety net that you need it yes I was gonna sorry I was thinking
there was a period of time where I started meditating when I was in Japan
yeah and I remember feeling just like serenity yep and I wanted you to tell me
a little bit about meditation yeah great so let's talk about meditation
so what's meditation reckful well now that putting it in the perspective of
what you were telling me earlier I guess I like it cuz it takes me out of myself
yep because I'm not myself at the time yeah
so I want y'all to understand so like we have a mind and we think we are a mind
but we are not our mind our mind is just a part of us right like if you think
about you can observe your own thoughts absolutely and then you're the observer
it kind of it's kind of mine fucking actually to think it is my fucking your
if you're observing the thoughts yeah so you can't you can't the observer cannot
be the observed so you can look at yourself in a mirror but then what
you're actually looking at is the mirror right you're not actually looking at
yourself so the Yogi's realize that there's this thing called consciousness
which is actually outside of the mind and sometimes when you meditate you
enter this state of mind where you have no thoughts and no real perception of
time because time also exists within the mind and that the more that you step out
of your mind the closer you get to the most basic version of yourself which is
what consciousness is and meditation is the systematic practice of stepping
outside of your mind and existing in a conscious state without the activity of
the mind and we tend to associate those two but there's a very simple
understanding of the states of consciousness go ahead ask ask I was
just gonna say we can agree on everything else without agreeing that
time exists in the mind right uh so one of the hallmarks of the
meditative state is you lose the perception of time yeah okay I mean
psilocybin - yeah right so that so that's because the perception of time
comes from within the mind so for example like when your mind yeah the
perception of time is yeah from consciousness from consciousness from
the mind right so so let's let's go through this what do you mean exactly so
first thing to understand is like we think about consciousness and mind as is
one thing but let's understand that you can have a state where you're conscious
without mind unconscious with mind conscious with mind in unconscious
without mind there's like a two-by-two table
okay I need explanation yeah so let's start with this so when you're when
you're sleeping are you conscious is your mind active yes yes when no it's
not okay so let's think about that when you're dreaming ah beautiful right but
you're not always dreaming so but I think even when you're not dreaming
you're repeating events of the day like let's say you play piano and then you go
to sleep sometimes you'll wake up and you'll know how to play it better
because I think while you're sleeping your mind repeats it over well no no so
what you're talking about is memory consolidation which happens during sleep
although I don't know if memory consolidation is an activity of the mind
or not but if we look at sleep you don't know if memory consolidation is an
active mind activity within the amygdala the amygdala is activating or something
yeah so your brain is not your mind so your brain is doing all kinds of shit
when you sleep but that's not mind what do you mean by money great so we're
gonna understand this all right all right okay so this is the first thing to
understand it's like if we think about mine so mind is like thoughts its
sensations its sensory perceptions that's mine okay so thoughts in sensory experiences
let's just call that mind so in sleep is that the what to call this something
cortex well it depends I mean each the cortex has different fields for
different perceptions so there's a somatosensory cortex there's an auditory
cortex there's an olfactory cortex there lots of different cortices so all the
cortex combined is that mine no so the brain is different from the mind ok so
remember that the yoga I'm having yellow so we're we're good so let's take a step
back from neuroscience for a minute and understand experience right so we can
talk about neuroscience and what the different parts of the brain's brain
does but let's take let's take the perspective perspective a yogi or an
individual so we're gonna talk about stuff that's not science but that anyone
who's watching can understand about their mind so the way in which we
experience it is what we're focusing on we could talk about the science
separately ok ok so when you're sleeping you can be dreaming or not dreaming
right so when you're not dreaming you're not conscious you're not aware and your
mind isn't doing anything particular like you're not thinking and when you
dream like you you acknowledge the state of dreaming and not dreaming or like
fundamentally different yes No let's start there I'll acknowledge that except
that they're fundamentally different but I maybe this thing of organizing the
memories could possibly be similar to dreaming and we just don't remember it
yeah possible yeah so there may be other functions that were not aware of
I completely agree so like there's a lot of stuff that our brain does that may be
the dividing line that I'm setting is not as simple as I think ok I'll
acknowledge that and we can move on so but essentially like when we're dreaming
we're not really it's sort of activity of the mind without awareness so we're
not really like conscious but our mind is still like it's like running a movie
in our head the other thing is there's also this state called daydreaming and
daydreaming is when we're awake but we're not actually aware like when
you're daydreaming you quote-unquote zone out right so that's actually sate
of conscious a lack of consciousness or no consciousness
with activity in the mind daydreaming is a lack of consciousness with activity
yeah that's why we call it daydreaming intuitively we understand that that
state of mind is similar to what happens in sleep which is why we use the same
word we use the word dream because any human being can okay yeah but I maybe I
would think that we're still conscious and it's just a different type sure yeah
I don't know if I would call it fine so a different type is fine I'll take that
right so like that like okay there's something fundamentally different
between what you're doing right now in your head and daydreaming agreed agree
so what I would say you have right now is consciousness or awareness with the
activity of mind so they're both turned on right now when
you're in a coma or you're not dreaming they're both turned off when you have
dreaming your mind is on but your awareness is off because you're not
aware like you're zoned out but your mind is still doing Shannon okay hmm
neuroscience stuff we can talk about later then we come to the last state
which is a state of consciousness without mind this is the state of
meditation this is the state that psilocybin sometimes helps you get to right so the simplest way to understand
this reckful yeah go foreign without the mind is the thought yes
so without yep we're just gonna show you God and we're still conscious no I get
it yeah no we're gonna show you we're gonna what you're right about so I think
we can talk about this shit until we're blue in the face but I think the
simplest way to help people understand is to actually enter that state of mind
and then you guys will know what I'm talking about
so can we meditate yeah fuck yeah sit up straight alright okay so someone's
asking someone's commenting about lucid dreaming so lucid dreaming is a great
example of consciousness active while you're dreaming right cuz you're aware
mm-hmm okay so reckful do this open your eyes mmm can you guys do this right hand
I'm gonna do that yeah but okay so we're gonna take our thumb and
we're gonna block are right nostril block are right now oh I'm doing the
other hand then okay wait you wanted me to do fit oh my god my autism is showing people say I am in this at this so
breathe in I'm not autistic guys okay so okay lock
your right nostril and B then use the other two fingers to block the opposite
nostril and then breathe out let go of the thumb and then breathe out breathe
in through the same nostril switch read out in through the same nostril switch
out in okay I was conscious but not thinking stop just keep doing it you
just started thinking again I know I'm just I I realized that I was good we'll
talk more okay so right now I don't like the nose thing I prefer to just breathe
in think about that but it's harder oh you don't like the nose thing because
both of your nose do you have a deviated septum no just I feel like I've to blow
my nose now no that's okay one of your sides is gonna be more open than the
other that's normal which side is more open mmm this one
right now that's left okay I look okay so do so okay we're gonna try this
because I want people at home do this because this is a good technique for
people at home you don't have to do it but so block the right nostril and BRE
then I'll do it I'll do when you take a full breath switch and
breathe out in through the same nostril switch out in switch out in switch out in switch out now remember that you breathe
in through the same nostril that you breathe out before you switch and now
continue at your own pace close your eyes we'll practice for about
three minutes go ahead and finish the breath that
you're on let your eyes main closed just relax now put your palms together in front of
you and start to rub feel the warmth of the friction and then cut them over your
eyes take a deep breath in and as you exhale slowly open your eyes when
they're fully open go ahead and relax that facial expression means you did it
right yeah how does your chest feel I wish you how would you describe how
would you describe how your loosen happy and good is a beautiful way to describe
it okay it's beautiful right okay so reckful you don't have to be an expert
to be right about what you think right because I'm getting the sense then
you're competent in some areas and your confidence you're confident that you're
competent in those areas and outside of those areas you may be feel like you're
not that competent but you're good dude yeah you're sure you're good trust
yourself I'm okay with I'm okay with being unconfident in the areas that I
don't know well I don't mind it yeah I think it's fine it's just like you
thought it was fine to do the eye roll I like that I'm not if I state something
as a fact then not that it is a fact but I'm Way more certain of it in my head
than most people will have to be certain of something to stay something as if I
great so what was your mind doing during that
practice just now like not oh it was in the practice it was off yeah but you
were conscious right so what you experienced is what I would call
consciousness without the mind and maybe your mind activated here or there like
it would have a thought yeah that's that's normal
but I I think this actually helps this this whole play helps with you stopping
the mind from activating yes keeps you focused yes yeah that's what it is
exactly right so the attention required to maintain the hand business is enough
at like of a pole to keep your mind from getting bored that's why I like this
technique because if you just sit there you tell people to observe their breath
if they have thought loops which is this kind of momentum of the mind you need
something to break the thought loops the cool thing is that if you if you get
good at this technique and you start to enter a depressive thought loop you
could do the technique and it'll shut off the mind and then the thought loop
will go away because the thought loop exists within the mind i I found for me
instead of this when I get distracted I and I remember then I account a point
just like a game is I'm like okay one every time I remember and also it's
enough of a bowl so that that's what you need right a pull a pull all so there
are a lot of different techniques of meditation all they are is a pull the
sanskrit word for this is da da da da daaaa means focus and if you do the
Tarna correctly if you do the focusing practice then you enter a state of mind
called Gyan Gyan is not something you do it's something that happens to you it's
like going to bed and falling asleep you can't so I'll tell you if you got sorry
a few years ago I thought this was all bullshit but then I don't know why I
thought that because actually people have been meditating and practicing and
learning it for such a long period of time 2500 years yeah it makes sense that it does something
yeah but I definitely thought it was the beginning I thought it was bullshit too
so like I grew up Indian and so had plenty of opportunities to learn yoga
and meditation went to like a yoga class when I was like eight and thought it was
a load of bullshit even went to like you know because and what I really loved
about going to India is I found people I would ask challenging questions and they
could fucking answer because they knew what they were talking about yeah
instead of the people like in my hometown which had like learning this
stuff and really didn't understand what they were saying I think it's completely
reasonable to actually think it's bullshit I think it's completely
reasonable to think reincarnation is bullshit - I think what happened do you
know why I brought I do you know why I brought up thinking about it well why
would you think I brought it up because you don't think it's bullshit
now no cuz I was thinking that a lot of people watching will think it's bullshit
and then that it's relatable for that us to have thought it was bullshit before
and then yeah so I think that's great so that's why I mentioned the reincarnation
for the same reason right so I think that the main thing to understand about
meditation this is why I teach meditation on stream because you could
talk about it like I don't care like whether whether I believe in
reincarnation or I think meditation is helpful or you think it's helpful is
completely right I don't believe in reincarnation it doesn't know I said
yeah no I mean I think it's reasonable to not believe in reincarnation I think
it's like that's a scientific and logical perspective because we have no
evidence of it right so the whole goal of this is like if you really want to
understand the benefits of meditation and what the nature of your mind is you
actually have to sit and do it because we can talk back and forth about
consciousness and mind but the second you meditate it took you like two
breaths to be like okay my mind Chandra Sheriff yeah because the whole time
we're talking about it our mind is not absolutely so we don't rewrite it yeah
we don't experience and so now we also kind of see like when you're playing
music when you're doing photography now we come full circle when you're playing
music when you're doing photography even when you're playing PvP and wow like you
stopped being you write for yeah I'm the mercy Europe you know experienced
reckful disappears and you're just one with the experience when you do
psilocybin the the barriers of the identity fall apart when you're
depressed you're in your own head you're stuck there
the thoughts are constant you're stuck inside yourself you're stuck inside
yourself stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck you can't get away oh should I eat
should I not eat III me me me it doesn't matter what I do it doesn't matter what
someone says people think I'm a piece of shit all of those thoughts me i me i me
I I'm worthless I'm worthless I'm worthless I'm worthless I'm worthless
IIIi I step outside of it learn to step outside yeah I I have recently started
to yeah it's nice yeah and also when I had those experiences in
the past so yeah with photography and Wow and nationals : yeah sometimes
relationships yep right and yeah definitely actually yeah but sometimes
relationships don't do in your mind right can go either way
yes it goes both ways yeah hmm I'm glad you weren't against the psilocybin yeah
I mean nobody a lot of people yeah so I think that like you know drugs people I
get questions about drugs a lot and I think that you know you just I think a
lot of people don't understand like we don't understand what stuff is doing to
our brain so I think you've got to be careful like for example a lot of people
think like oh marijuana doesn't make people stupid no it doesn't make people
stupid what what it does is hampers your motivational circuitry that's like worse
and I think that if you're that actually is what I think if your brain is
developing you shouldn't pollute it with shit like I think if you want to do I
mean I'm not advocating drug use but I think that the damage that's done to a
developing brain because it's developing his way worse than what's done to a
fully formed ring okay and and I think that these substances like I don't know
if people know this but like Yogi's and stuff even Shiva who's sort of the first
Yogi's like a Hindu deity but presumably was a man at some point he was just like
a meditator like he smoked pot like because that's what Yogi's some of the
Yogi's and some of the traditions of meditation use but I think that all of
this stuff should be done under the guidance of a guru or done like it's not
just sitting around hi because generally speaking I don't
know many people who are soup well I mean actually I do know a lot of people
who were successful and get high on a regular basis but I know many more
people who smoke pot and or nothing and so I think that you know all
substances have a role nothing is nothing is really a judgment sure turn
though sure I think what it what does it mean to be nothing you know I mean maybe
they're enjoying if they're enjoying their life it's okay I I don't think so
you don't think oh yeah I don't think enjoyment I don't think enjoyment is a
meaningful life I think if you're living your community then for some people it
might be the I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but if they're enjoying
it and with a group of people what if they're all enjoying it together
so I think you think it individually is fine I think as long as you're
fulfilling your Dharma if you're doing your duty to like yourself and to other
people and you're making the world a better place then you can do whatever
the fuck you want to in your free time but you should you should have a life of
Dharma where you fulfill your Dharma and I don't think that hedonism or just the
sake of like living a life of pleasure is like I'd say that that life is
nothing okay is that judgmental absolutely I don't
claim to be non judgement oh no I'm fine with you think I'm fine with you
thinking that yeah I'm not completely against hedonism I
would say let's say we found a way to manipulate our brain chemistry to be
happy all the time and we all wanted to do it I wouldn't be against it I mean
our goals suddenly would be different maybe maybe our civilization wouldn't
advance as much as it is but well I mean there there is a way to be happy all the
time so I advocate for people trying to be
happy all the time that that state I'm not saying there isn't I'm you know it'd
be more readily achievable if we manipulated our neurotransmitters or
something yeah maybe with yeah yeah I mean I've there are a lot of concepts
there that I think need to be dug into more but maybe not that we have time for
today I'm wondering do people have questions yeah yeah oh yeah people have
questions in answer yeah let me see if there's I have like a question bond but
it seems like I'm gonna go eat soon and like probably like 10 minutes or
something I had a really good time talking I want to hear you answer the
questions actually I want to but I don't see oh by the way his how do I um can
somebody help me tee up questions oh here we go
somebody help him please his stream is healthy gamer underscore GG people are
linking it my mods are linking it in the chat so people are is there okay there's
a lot of stuff okay so what is the fulfilling life is there a way to be
happy all the time there's a quiet debate on when the brains develop I have
heard many different when is the same brain fully developed did it work you
won't just okay okay look let's okay there are a lot of questions about flow
in the zone and being happy all the time and can you get addicted to meditation I
think is what one of the questions is so let's start with like so meditation you
step outside of your mind and it can be relieving the other cool thing about
meditation though is that I think it lets you understand the other patterns
within yourself that keep you stuck so I don't think that you can really get
addicted to meditation because I think when you meditate a lot you're gonna
start to process things that you don't through other forms of distraction
that's why I think meditation is o P because sure it helps you feel better in
the moment but it's not like getting high because getting high isn't gonna
like people think they have a lot of realizations when they get high because
the perceives that it understands things but
then you wake up the next day and your life isn't actually changed my
overwhelming experience in my own life and also teaching
meditation in my day job is that when people start to meditate regularly they
change like the way that they view the world changes the way that they interact
with the world changes there's overwhelming neuro scientific evidence
that that the brain changes when you meditate I don't know of go ahead I was
just gonna say I really do believe and since I've been changing psilocybin
sniffing psilocybin is different so there there's a set of naga for Academy
and psilocybin ayahuasca ibogaine that I do believe can can transform people so
there's no there's overwhelming and not overwhelming there's very promising
preliminary evidence that some of these substances can like profoundly change
people for the positive MDMA is another one so there are trials that have pilot
studies that have been done I'm doing a for PTSD and psilocybin for treatment
refractory depression I also I mean I'm an addiction psychiatrist in my day job
so like I had a patient who used opiates for many many he's been using substance
some some substance or another since he was a teenager and then used some of
these substances and had some really powerful transformative experiences that
I can't relate because they're very specific but just weird like
supernatural like metaphysical like soul body reincarnation level shit and he is
like a transformed person in his sober for the first time in his life for like
eight months like since he was a teenager started experimenting with
drugs when he was a teenager and has finally stopped using him
the really mind-blowing thing about him is that when he went to this treatment
center that uses this stuff after he was telling me about some of his
transformative experiences and then like I thought that he wouldn't continue
treatment because he felt cured and then he blew my mind when he made this
statement he was like yeah I felt like there was a spiritual route to my
addiction which has been cured but there's also a psychology to that and I
need to work on that so continued with addiction treatment in
with actually like a gung-ho inist ever seen him do before it's really
fascinating so I think a lot of these mind-altering substances do have roles
in terms of like helping people but you're cutting I don't know I do believe
that they have roles in helping people I just don't know you know I think it's it
needs to be explored okay so people are asking about being happy all the time
yeah so I think what happens is like there's a state called enlightenment
which is something that people who meditate very regularly do like I mean
very few people have attained enlightenment but enlightenment is sort
of like this background level of like peace and calm which you can cultivate
over time which starts to affect like the rest of your life so when you
meditate for a regular very regular period of time there are some
neuroscience changes the most prominent of which is probably frontal lobe
inhibition of your amygdala and limbic system which okay which lets you just be
like more chilled out and yeah I was restarting I was changing a server
because it I didn't want to but it kept it in interrupting yeah it should be
good night yes so you told him what the problem is so someone's asking you told
them what the problem was but how do you fix it what do you think reckful what do
you think about what we talked about today I I think you made it pretty
obvious I just pursue my purpose my meaning there was a word you kept Dharma
d-h Dharma yeah is that okay I think that's part of it and I think
the other thing is that that I think hopefully
reckful you understand that like this has a root somewhere inside you and I
think we got pretty close to the root today which is why you had sort of this
powerful kind of experience and just understanding that there's a route to
like your suffering and understanding that that route is legitimate right you
didn't just get sure you may have gotten the short straw in life in terms of
having a family history of depression and having like a biological
predisposition but ultimately I think a lot of your suffering or your lack of
meaning like started at a particular point and that understanding can
actually be like the first step of a very important journey and I don't know
exactly where that journey leads I say if you have a therapist you can work
with them otherwise I mean I think reckful I have faith in you just that
through reflection and through work and if you start meditating regularly you're
gonna understand this on your own without anyone's help
although help will accelerate the process but I mean I think just
continued I like to yeah I think I think you've accomplished amazing things and
that you will continue to do so and that when you put your mind to something it
sounds like you're pretty fucking good at it so I think this is just what you
need to turn your mind to when you're ready to write Thanks
thanks for today by the way thanks for coming on I really appreciate this cause
yeah there was uh this was a this one day was a important moment in my life
and thank you thank you for letting me do my Dharma this is why I do what I do
man and now you go do what you need to do and go eat something first okay yeah
thanks a lot oh I'll see you uh yeah oh you got a lot
of hearts in the chest yeah let me just switch this but thank you very much okay
