81: Dinner with Dr. Juan

An intimate dinner party-neuroscience conversation with experiential journalist Rak Razam, Dr. Juan Acosta, the 'mad scientist on the frontiers of consciousness' that starred in the film Aya: Awakenings, and Cheryl. Dr Juan has mapped EEG data from subjects legally ingesting Salvia Divinorum, 5-MeO-DMT, experiencing kundalini activation and monks meditating. Neuroscience can now map our brain states, but it takes a real neuroshaman to tell what occurs experientially within the journey itself… And why does nature make these substances that fit our brain systems, anyway? Can the EEG data sets recorded from one subject be rolled out onto the mindfield of another subject via neurofeedback? Can we electronically stimulate and repeat these transcendental experiences? How does language change the brain? When both psychedelics and meditation shut off the Default Mode Network what happens to the brain? Is the brain structure is like an ecosystem that mirrors the planetary ecology, which is itself a nested consciousness? Was the 'fall' into consciousness the turning ON of the species' Default Mode Network? Is the imagination a receiver of the infinite fields of Gaian consciousness we are embedded in? Oh, a feast of ideas awaits you! The groundbreaking shamanic documentary Aya: Awakenings is now available for viewing and download on Vimeo on Demand and you can read the book that inspired the film and join the discussion on our Facebook page. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.