Psychonautics Film Release March 5, 2019

You might be interested in checking out this documentary (see the trailer), I had the pleasure of seeing an early screening on a road trip I did to the Psychedelic Film Festival at the New School in New York City a few months ago.  The lead role in the film is comedian Shane Mauss, he is very funny, lots of good clips of him on YouTube, he did a whole tour of just "psychedelic based comedy" I think it's his best material.  Shane also does a science podcast (I don't know, I just couldn't get into the episodes I checked out, but others may like it) and he has been on Joe Rogan's show and Conan O'Brian.  He has had many fascinating DMT experiences, unfortunately for the most part these stories did not make it into the documentary.  Shane was at the film festival and fielded audience questions, I asked him to talk about what conclusions he has reached on the nature of the vaped DMT experience, as well as to talk about his involvement with the DMTx project, of which he was supposed to be first guinea pig on a wild long duration continuous DMT trip (the group behind this intends to use an anesthesia machine to induce a “steady state” of peak DMT effects lasting hours instead of minutes). 

There is one big problem - Shane is bipolar, and just about every psychedelics enthusiast knows that mental disorders like bipolar disorder, are contraindicated for all psychedelics. This didn't stop Shane though.  So this documentary ended up turning into a "cautionary tale" - Shane used an excessive amount of psychedelics, then ended up going manic, and eventually landed in a mental hospital for an unplanned 2 week stay!  How's that for timing during the filming of a documentary about psychedelics?  Haha.  So there may be some lessons learned here, although I'm not sure how applicable they are to people without mental disorders.  Someone with bipolar disorder can go manic at any time, it doesn't require psychedelic drugs as a trigger, but its certainly possible that psychedelics can contribute to pushing a person out of mental balance.  I've always been against the excessive use of psychedelics, I think a person can actually get much more out of their experiences when they treat it as a rare and special occasion, where they prepare their mind possibly for weeks or even months ahead of time and wait for just the right time and place.  I've heard about people who use psychedelics daily (I'm not talking about micro-dosing) and this just seems "not right" to me but who am I to judge?  Even the hard core ayahuasca drinking religious groups in South America mostly only partake 1-2 times per month (which still seems like a lot to me, but apparently no harm has been noted from such levels of use, in fact there is even evidence that this is helpful, not harmful, to mental health). 

Anyway, for anyone interested, Psychonautics  is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2HaOBLa

And iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/psychonautics-a-comics-exploration-of-psychedelics/id1450881967?mt=6&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

And will be available on March 5th, 2019 on Youtube and Vimeo for rental as well as on demand on most cable providers, playstation, Xbox, etc.