Oof

... no guidance or preparation or understanding of what that drug was or what it was going to do to me, and then proceeded to have a pretty destabilizing, kind of anxiety-provoking experience that, you know, the, the people I was with didn't know what they were doing either, so no one really knew how to, like, handle the, the dysregulation that was coming up, um, for me or for anyone else in the room.

And I left that experience really altered i, in a way and actually, you know, would not return to psychedelics for a while because of it.

And for a long time, you know, was really scared and leery of, of these substances.

Flash forward a little bit, I had, you know, in my early 20s, had some experiences with MDMA that were, uh, much more pleasant, [laughs] much more enjoyable.

Had some experiences with psilocybin as well that were more enjoyable.

But it was all in this kind of recreational lens.

Mm

So in the months after that, and as you were processing that and healing from that experience, like it has been like a marked difference is like with the anger, you can feel the change.

Yeah, I mean, you know, for me personally, what was going on around in my life at that time was, you know, I had recently gotten married.

Marriage for me was the catalyst to actually opening up my trauma.

I didn't realize that I was struggling with trauma until I got married.

Now looking back on it, I think why that catalyzed this opening for me was because it was the first time in my life that I had ever been in a safe situation fully with another human who really had my best interests at heart.

In that safe setting, my nervous system was like, what the heck is this? Like, this is not, this is weird.

This isn't normal.

I really wanted to say this about what we're doing and the progress we're making.

If all psychedelics were superheroes, would ibogaine be more like Captain America or someone kind of darker like Wolverine?

Wolverine?Certainly on the darker side.

Um, you know, these are, uh, the experiences that ibogaine brings about in people are typically referred to and, and discussed as very challenging and difficult experiences.

I almost...

You know, in fact, when you started to bring up the metaphor of superhero, actually, the first person that came to my mind was Loki.

[laughs]

Oh, yeah?

And, and, and you know, "I've heard of this research.