Get High Now author interviewed on Expanding Mind podcast

My favorite podcast as of late is Erik Davis' Expanding Mind, which covers the realm of human consciousness. In previous podcasts Erik has talked with guests about neuro technologies, ceremonial magic, secret societies, underground comics, grass-roots science, hedonic circuits, and supernatural pop culture.

In the latest episode, Erik spoke with James Nestor, author of Get High Now Without Drugs : Over 175 sensory trips and tricks for visual stimulation, compressing time, lucid dreaming, mediation, and more. It's terrific fun in the vein of anther book I really like called Astonish Yourself: 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life by Roger-Pol Droit.

As Nestor told Davis, the impetus for Get High Now was a visit to his recently departed uncle's house in the Hollywood Hills. Nestor's uncle, in addition to being a wealthy eccentric bon vivant playboy, was also an avid amateur researcher of consciousness altering techniques. He had thousands of books and hand written notes on things like smoking ants (to absorb the formic acid into your bloodstream, which was recently outlawed in Dubai after kids started getting into it), hypnagogic induction, theta wave brain synchronization tapes, isolation tanks, ingesting the blood of schizophrenics, Transcendental meditation, lucid dreaming, Yucatecan trance induction beats, and so on.

Nestor (who lives in San Francisco) started practicing the safer methods with a group of friends and acquaintances dubbed HighLab. Nestor kept notes of what happened during this experiments, and these notes became the basis for his book.

Of the 175 methods in the book, the HighLab chose 15 as their favorites, including: binaural beats, clary sage bah, isolation tanks, kundalina transcendent, chanting, lucid dreaming, mud sleep induction, risset rhythm, shepard tones, Sudarshan Kriya, and thalassotherapy.

The "without drugs" part is somewhat misleading, as Nestor does mention quite a few substances such as catnip, basil, sage, puffer fish, cyanobacteria, mucana pruriens, hops, reindeer urine, and other supposedly psychoactive agents. By "drugs," he means the usual suspects: pot, LSD, cocaine, speed. These are not included in the book.

Here's the website for the book, which includes recordings of Binaural Beats, Cambiata Illusion, Chromatic Illusion, Colored Noise, Disappearing Noise, Holophonic Sound, Psuedo-Tomatis Healing Sounds, Risset Rhythm, Shepard-Risset Glissando, Shepard Tones, Theta Wave Brain Synchronization, Yucatecan Trance Induction Beats. There's also a link to an iPhone app with all the sounds and videos so you can get high while on the go.

What fun!

Expanding Mind podcast | Get High Now Without Drugs : Over 175 sensory trips and tricks for visual stimulation, compressing time, lucid dreaming, mediation, and more

• [Keneke]

  But what I really want to know is how many of these work, and how many are just urban legend?

  • [cymk]

    It is essentially using binaural beats to achieve it’s results. Assuming the sources on the wiki article are to be trusted, scientists have proved that binaural beats to influence the mind making you focus, relax, or dream.

  • [DeadWriter]

    I was completely skeptical about binaural beats and the lot. The book is not definitive, not all things will have an effect on every person. “High Labs” tested each one (except for a few like eating the marrow of a schizophrenic or giraffe ) and found supporting evidence as to why some would work.

    From the app. one thing, that was a bit of a trip (but a high), by playing the same sequence of identical tones in both of one’s ears, one ear will hear one side as being higher in pitch or hear a tone that doesn’t exist. As a test flip the headphones, same ear despite flipping the headphones (thus proving that the tones are the same). Now for the trippy part, raise your dominate hand.

    The book is laid out well. Each idea is presented. If one chooses, one could follow the directions for the “high” first and then read the explanation. That’s how I am going about it. The human mind can convince it’s self of reality, and that’s part of the key to some the “highs”.

    Yes, some are debunked, and others are presented for you to try. It all about having an open mind and trying the techniques out.

• [DeadWriter]

  I highly recommend the iPhone app that was released to accompany the book. Get High Now iPhone App Link . It’s a lot of fun.

  The book is a fun read. The application is a blast. There are lots of things to be learned from both. The audio illusions are pretty amazing, and worth the buck. The book is a good casual read. I place it along with my Mind Hacks and Brain Hacks books for usefulness.

  One could find this information all over the place for free, but it is put together well in the book and in the app. If I had to choose one, I’d go for just the app because it has some tools to help one focus (if you already don’t have a colored noise generator).

  The interview on Coast-To-Coast is what sent me to the app store. The app was fun so I bought the book and have not regretted the purchase.

• [self-propelled]

  Interesting. 2nd para in the post makes it sound like there are tips & tricks for mediation – I’d probably be even more interested in that.

• [Anonymous]

  Ok, smoking ants, check.
  Hypnotic beats, check.
  Drinking the blood of a schizoprenic, chec–WHAT THE HELL?

• [Derek C. F. Pegritz]

  It’s ridiculously easy to make a sensory deprivation tank out of an old tub and a pair of silicone earplugs to block out sound. It’s a very…intriguing experience.

• [Cog]

  Mark, I feel like a total goofball, here, but where’s the website you mention toward the end?

  I see links to Amazon and the podcast, but I’m missing the actual website for the book… Just me?

  • [cymk]

    The link you are looking for might be this one:

    http://gethighnow.com/

    It might be mentioned in the podcast, but I remember it from an earlier radio interview on coast to coast am.

• [Anonymous]

  http://gethighnow.com/

  He was on Coast to Coast AM about a month ago as well, if you want to check out that interview.

• [bigbibbowski]

  This was better the first time I read it, when it was called STONED FREE by Patrick Wells and Douglas Rushkoff. Come on!