14. Unplug from the matrix with psychedelics. A chat with Carina Cunha. Founder of Satori Health.

Unplug from the matrix with psychedelics. A chat with Carina Cunha. Founder of Satori Health. === [00:00:00] Carina Cunha: neuroplasticity is just basically how malleable your brain is. If you think about a road, it's almost that like our brain has this big highways, that are gonna connect a little bit of information to connect to your neurons. But then if you take psychedelics, you're able to create these side roads. It's almost creating a new path of neurons talking to each other that would not otherwise talk. That's why after a psychedelic experience, you can be thinking about a traumatic event without the emotions associated with it, because during that trip, you created a new link to in your brain to access that information. [00:00:56] Mizter Rad: Hello, beautiful humans. Have you ever tried psychedelics? If not, maybe you're curious. Maybe a bit scared. Today, I'm joined by Carina Cunha. She is the founder of Satori Health. I invited her because I'm curious about the topic. I want to know more. I want to know how she's using psychedelics to help people find their purpose in life. Carina, tudo bem? Tudo joia? [00:01:25] Carina Cunha: Tudo bom. Tudo optimo. Prazer de estar aqui. [00:01:29] Mizter Rad: All right. Thank you. Thank you for being here as well. Carina is originally from Brazil, but she speaks several languages, that's why I welcomed her in Brazilian Portuguese. So let's start by telling my audience who you are and how you got into learning, using and sharing your knowledge on psychedelics. Basically, tell us your story, Carina, cuz I think it's pretty interesting. So let's start there. [00:01:51] Carina Cunha: Yeah, of course. So, as you said, I was born and raised in Brazil. When I was 10 years old, my parents got divorced and then my mom moved us to San Francisco when I was 13. So she has narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. And so being a child, living with a person like that, and being away from my family, I actually had a really, really hard time in being with her in San Francisco. And at 16 I had really terrible, terrible depression, and I tried to actually commit suicide. So my my life was pretty challenging at that point. And even though I was a valedictorian of my school and things were relatively okay in the front, you know, I was struggling a lot. But I managed to get over at least that harsh part. I went to Columbia University for my undergraduate at 17. I ended up graduating at 20, because I wanted to be financially independent for my parents as soon as possible because they were not there for me. So at 20 I thought that once my, I had achieved a financial independence and I started working as an investment banker, things would be okay, but they weren't. So I got rotated through every antidepressant you can imagine. And because I had depression while being high-achieving, they thought that I was bipolar. So I also got placed in bipolar med medication. I even took lithium for a while. And that was pretty challenging because my problem was not neurological or biological in that sense. It was actually just trauma that I hadn't been able to process. And so at 23 I left out of the antidepressants. I decided to take a break in my career and I went to the University of Edinburgh to study personality psychology, because I wanted to better understand what happened to me. Why, you know, mom, my parents, treated me that way, and just understand humans because I was quite disillusioned by it. And at that point I came across a lot of studies talking about the effects of psilocybin mushrooms that were starting to be done by Imperial at the time. So it hadn't reached the global point right now. And I also had watched DMT, the spirit molecule, when it just got released. So I was fascinated, but I was really scared of trying it. Because I have really bad reaction to weed . So if I have, if I smoke weed, even one or two puffs, I get really bad anxiety. So it took me a little bit of time. But one day I actually was drunk after a Halloween party, and mushrooms actually grow in Scotland just on the park. So some people had picked it up and then they were selling them in front of the club. And so I bought them. A month later, I finally had the courage to take them. I took about 2.5 grams of golden teachers in my bedroom. And I mean, I started seeing fairies. My phone became the Babel, like almost like the Tower of Babel without of knowledge. And it was the most wonderful experience. Completely different than any experience I had had with weed, um, up at that point. And I felt so, so intrigued by what it had. And then I also was when I went to Brazil, then later that year to see my family. I'm in my grandma's, um, house putting Christmas decoration, and then an aunt of mine is telling me that she's doing ayahuasca. And after seeing DMT spirit molecule, so interested in that. So I finally went to... yeah, I decided to be, to jump into that because I'm like, okay, my aunt knows the shaman, she has a PhD in biology. Felt relatively safe. But that first experience wasn't actually good for me, because the shaman that I, that was friends with my aunt, wasn't the one that led the ceremony. And I actually, um, realized that the looking back, that the brew that was given to me, that ceremony, wasn't actually the right brew. Because you can mix different amounts of substances to actually get that power of ayahuasca. So I was quite disappointed and disheartened, because I didn't get that amazing experience that I expected. It was also really busy and very loud in the place. So set and setting is super important. And I can speak more about that later. But I didn't want to quit. So for the next six months when I was waiting for my visa to the UK to get approved, and I couldn't actually work yet, have a full-time work at the time. I started experimenting with every psychedelic that you can imagine. Because I wanted that next time that I wanted to Brazil, I wanted to actually try ayahuasca, but I thought that I needed to try myself. So basically bootcamp myself was upwards of like the equivalent of 10 types of acid and a bunch of other things. And I learned how to really navigate that mindset so then I could really push myself further. And then I had my second ayahuasca experience a few months later, and that actually made me connect to the divine. I understood, the meaning of life, my place in the universe. I saw what happened after we die, and it was incredible because up until that point, just thinking about death, I would have insane panic attacks. But I never had, ever since that experience. And then for the last, you know, that was about eight years ago. So for all of those years, I became a psychedelic advocate, where I have overseen so many people, friends, families. And I helped a lot of people actually cure the depression. As a closet psychedelic had over these years with, by connecting them to psychedelics. And so most recently I was working in London with a number of entrepreneurship opportunities and they founders factory in woven science, which is a psychedelic fund, created this incubation and acceleration process for a number of companies. And then I pitched the idea of Satori, because I basically wanted to give people the things that I didn't have myself. And so we created a company in four pillars. One, which is to educate. Two, which is access to safe and legal, peak psychedelic experiences. Three is to integrate and four is community. And those last two are super important because even though I was able to cure an existential crisis. I still faced a lot of problems with not knowing how to love myself, not having the right boundaries, not having nurturing relationships in my life. Because I only did the first bit of the equation, and I didn't necessarily integrate properly. So I have been on a very deep personal development journey that I started about four years ago. And so I'm really passionate about people actually having that support to not just have the experiences, but actually make actionable changes in your lives. Because it should never take that long after a psychedelic experience for you to make the changes that are going to benefit you. [00:08:58] Mizter Rad: So you touched a lot of interesting topics that I wanna break down bit by bit. But start with that last part because I think that's important cuz I feel like people think that they take, some people might think that when they take a mushroom or they take psilocybin or whatever, DMT, Ayahuasca, and they go through the process. After that, they come out cured, so to say. But you're talking about a four step pillar, or four, four step process or four pillars that you're building your company on. And the two pillars in the end that you mentioned are to integrate our commun... a community. What are those and why do you think why are you saying that they're super important? Can you build up on that? [00:09:42] Carina Cunha: Yeah, of course. So integration really means for you to make sense of your psychedelic experience. And then a community, I was touched that in a little bit. But basically, psychedelics just open the door to your own conscious. It shows you a new perspective on life. There is some neuroplasticity, so it allows you to connect different parts of your brain that may not otherwise be speaking to each other. So that actually allows you to see the problem from a different perspective or to start building pathways in the brain that are going to allow you not to potentially suffer as you think about something. So for example, when you are on LSD, which is one of my favorite substances you are, you have your prefrontal cortex, which is the area in your brain where you make logical decisions and it's quite rational. And you have your amygdala, which is your fightin flight response, where a lot of fear and anxiety sits there. So you're able to address a lot of these memories that you would in a normal state only have your amygdala reacting to it. So like, let's say if you have a lot of trauma around something, you're going to start having really bad emotions about it, and then you are not going to have your logical mind actually thinking about it. But then when you're on a substance, that force for actually activates those two things. At the same time, you're able to have your normal brain, your rational brain, addressing those thoughts and feelings, and then you're able to start processing them without that fight and flight response where your brain would be shutting down. So that's beautiful. And you can sometimes do like, you know, 10 years of therapy and taking trauma in like a high dose of mushrooms or LSD from that perspective. But after that, it's about how you actually make changes in your lives. So if you go back to an environment that's still quite traumatic, that you're not nurturing or honoring yourself, you are going to keep on getting to the same place that you were before. So I see a lot of people go from the ayahuasca circle to Ayahuasca circle without actually making changes that would allow their lives to get better. And so yes, you get a lot of insights, but then it's actually about what do you do with those insights. And then to compliment that to the community part. So in my case, because I didn't know how to love myself and have boundaries, I kept on being around friends and access that were quite abusive in our relationships. And so I was getting all these insights for psychedelics, but I wasn't respecting myself because I had these people around me that didn't actually honor me. And so I kept on getting quite hurt on my day-to-day interactions because I was in abusive relationships. So then I kept on not being able to, realize my potential, actually have that self-love because I'm, dating a narcissist. So, yeah. And so if you need to have a community that is going to empower you rather than take away from you. And I didn't have people, many people in my personal circle, until I came out of the psychedelic closet that's wearing into psychedelics. So there was no person that I could actually explore a lot of these things with. You know, there were people that I brought into psychedelics, but I didn't have that community. And, you know, you are the people that you surround yourself with. You need to basically nourish... provide the ingredients for your new life to flourish. [00:13:22] Mizter Rad: And that community that you talk about and that integration with, let's say, your daily day-to-day lifestyle after a trip on psychedelics or after a therapy of several trips, several sessions. How do you ensure as a company or as a, let's say as a navigator, when a client comes to you and or someone, a friend of yours comes to you and says: Hey, I wanna, I wanna go, I wanna go on the journey. I wanna try it out. Because I wanna discover myself. I wanna, you know, learn about it and learn about myself as well. And maybe I have this trauma that I wanna open up and figure out how to heal it. How do you then make sure that that person doesn't go back to the traditional day-to-day activity that was also hurting her before the actual trips? [00:14:21] Carina Cunha: Yeah, so that's really about, people actually wanting to make real and lasting changes in their lives. So one of the things that we are developing with Satori is the protocol for radical self-empowerment. And so I'm really passionate about that, because in the end of the day no therapist, no psychedelic, is going to be able to save anyone. These are just tools that are catalysts for a personal change. So, about doing that psychedelic experience and being the, you know, like being the owner, like in, for lack of a better word, of your life. Knowing that the reasons that you were here were because of the choices that you made. So when you're under a psychedelic influence, you're able to see things really clearly. So a lot of times, patterns of events and unhealthy, like unhealthy behaviors are gonna become so clear that you are able to remember things that may, that could have been buried in your mind. And then you're going to see this pattern of behavior that is going to be so, so simple to you. And then because you have that knowledge, then it's up to you to actually make that change later. I'll give an example here. So I was actually married in my mid twenties to someone that was really, really challenging. He had quite an abusive personality, and and he had a bit of a problem with alcohol. Our relationship got into a pretty bad place because he would drink a lot and it was really difficult sometimes because he would come home drunk and I would be going to work and the next day. And so I couldn't sleep. And it, it became, um, yeah, pretty bad. And that's why he's an ex now. But at the time, I kept on bargaining with the idea that maybe if he kept, if he quit alcohol, everything would be fine. And so I kept on like considering okay, maybe if he stops doing that, if he go to therapy, et cetera. And then I did an acid trip to try to understand how I wanted to approach the situation. And what became really clear after that is that the main problem in that relationship wasn't that he had a problem with alcohol. That, we had problems as a couple. It was that all of his behaviors showed that he was a very selfish person. And so at the end of the night I asked myself, Carina do you want to spend the rest of your life with a selfish person? And obviously the answer was no. So then no longer the need for trying to engage him with therapy or alcohol was there, because the real problem was that he was selfish. And so, um, insights like that become very clear. And then as people go on with their lives they can start integrating that. And what we do at Satori is that we provide that support with integration coaching. So we help people keep on asking themselves these questions and trying to find the solutions that could make an impact in our lives. And that's why, um, you know, it's more in integration that we find that a lot more beneficial to take a coaching style, rather than a therapy style. Because in the end of the day, it's just about helping the person continue on trying to find an answer to the challenges that they are facing. [00:17:42] Mizter Rad: How related is this to authenticity, like personal human authenticity? I believe that everyone should strive, or life in, in a way, should be about striving to be authentic and individual, and exploring that. And having that confidence to actually stand up for whatever you believe in, or however you have been raised, whether the circumstances were positive or negative. But how is this related to being actually a hundred percent auth or striving to be a hundred percent authentic? [00:18:15] Carina Cunha: Yeah, of course. I think that's a really big challenge because our society asks people to conform. And from a really young age we are out told that we should put down our personal instincts, or feelings for the benefit of others. I actually see that a lot with families. So people really don't like the words trauma in our society, but I actually see an, I see trauma everywhere because when you think about it, even the structures of families is like, um, you need to do what your parents tell you. You need to go to university for A, B, C, D, F, G reasons because it's what is expected of you. So we grow up in these cages that start so young because, we are often told that. , we need to put other people's needs above our own. And so we actually have a very, a highly disempowered society where if you put your needs above somebody else's, you are going to be told that you're being selfish or there is something wrong with you. But in fact, when we keep on doing that, it becomes actually much easier for us to do that for other things as well. So I see that some of our family systems where we are not honoring our needs because, this person's, our parents, like literally sometimes there are our families that are actually the ones that treat us the worst, but we accept it because, they are family. So we have to put up with it. So we compromise all the time. And then when we are compromising on our personal lives, we then become a lot easier for us to compromise at work. So then we all believe that we, that, like compromises is an essential part of a relationship. An essential part of a job. So there are always goods and bads. And I don't necessarily think that that's the case. That's just something that becomes easier for you to force somebody to accept something. And then when you're compromising on things that are your needs because you just have to do it because you don't have any other choice. You're basically being inauthentic, because you're not allowing your true desires to come out. So it's a quite challenging because I find that people use the word authenticity as if something, as if, if it is something that you just can't turn on and off. But then our society structures often require us to be inauthentic with ourselves. And so for me, my biggest north starring life is integrity. So if there is anything that is out of integrity with myself, I cannot do it. And it actually put me in a lot of problems in the past because, not necessarily problems because I do live an authentic life now, but I find that if sometimes I just didn't feel the need to always be true to my personal integrity my life could have been easier in many ways. So I have sometimes passed out investor opportunities, because I didn't feel aligned to that person. Or I have left jobs because I didn't believe in the culture anymore. So like, let's put it that way: I'd have a lot more money in my bank account if I wasn't pursuing integrity. But at the same time it's just something that I cannot live without. I cannot go to sleep if I don't feel, if I feel that I have not honored myself. However, there is a lot of times that we are actually gaslighting ourselves. So then we start trying to believe that the problem is with us. And we start second guessing, and that's like a whole other issue. [00:21:37] Mizter Rad: What happens when, when that, when that goes through your mind because I feel like. I kind of agree with what you're saying, that being, trying to be authentic and live by your moral standards, and try not to get affected by what people say, for example and so on, should be or is the ideal of human, of the human individuality. But it's hard sometimes to not want to belong to something... [00:22:06] Carina Cunha: of course... [00:22:07] Mizter Rad: or not want to be accepted by the rest. So how do you deal with this? How, and how, how do you think psychedelics help actually in this specific point? Because I think there's a connection there maybe on what you were talking about before on, on having clear visuals when you are on a trip like this and trying to understand better yourself. [00:22:28] Carina Cunha: Yeah.Yeah. So I would say here is that it is not one or the other. It's something that I actually don't like about, uh, Val Tower Society, is that there is a lot of duality in our thinking. You can belong and still be a authentic to yourself. So I think that for me, a really big word is boundaries. I actually made it a theme of my year in 2021. Is that you need to find communities in places that you belong, that are going to respect your boundaries. And that's something I wasn't doing, for a lot of my life. If your in your authentic self is going to be in conflict with the people around you, then that's going to create a problem. And so the question really that we help our clients ask themselves is like, is that even the right people for you to be around? Because if people are really, people that want the best for you, they are going to honor your authentic self. And when I mean authentic self is obviously there is some limitations there. Don't be an asshole. You know, like, uh, so as long as your authentic self is something that is actually giving light and doing good to the world and is something that is positive, you will have a community that you belong. If you have communities where you cannot be yourself, then, you know, you just grew out of it. And I think that a lot of times people value history more so in than, you know, like that, like you overemphasize your history as a person over like sometimes how they treat you. So one of the things I'm really passionate about is that just because you may have been friends with somebody for 10 years, it doesn't mean that you should be friends with them for the next 10 years. We are in a constant process of evolution. And so realizing that relationships, people are not static, allows you to have that freedom to keep on searching for things that are actually true to yourself. What psychedelics do is that they allow you to really see what do you value, what do you, what is important to you? What, how do you feel about things? It's actually really cool. So, um, one time when I was in mushrooms, um, a small dose, I actually was looking at my emails and I realized how you can actually be traumatized by emails and . [00:24:55] Mizter Rad: How is that, how is that? Tell us about that. [00:24:57] Carina Cunha: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's because I actually was looking at the emails and then with mushrooms, um, your emotions become so much more clear because what happens is that you have the neuro default mode network when you're operating. That's basically the software for your brain. So it allows you to focus on everything that you're doing and then push down things that you don't wanna feel at that moment. It makes it very efficient because you wouldn't be able to be filling everything at the time, otherwise you wouldn't be able to go through your life. But then I took this small dose of mushrooms. I'm looking at my emails and I realize how having a lot of things demanding your attention. You know, like I having like 10 things, marked in red with big caps, demanding my attention. Independent of the content, is actually quite stressful. Because we are just not made to be interacting with so much, so many pieces of information all the time, and having something demanding something out of you. So we go through these actions on a day-to-day basis that are always increasing a like that can be increasing our stress hormones, that are actually demanding us to be giving them something when sometimes we don't have energy. So if you get a, a bunch of emails and you are completely wiped out, it cannot be a nice situation. But we don't necessarily think about that and we just go on with your day. So I almost see it as like a glass of water that keeps on getting emptied with all these little interactions, and you don't necessarily notice it getting emptied. But then by the end of the day, like you are completely exhausted. You may be stressed. But you didn't realize of the little things that modern society has structured, that can be quite challenging for our biology. [00:26:47] Mizter Rad: That's an interesting way to put it with a, with a glass full of water that is step by step getting empty and you don't realize how stressful that process is and what kind of triggers you get in microseconds, basically in front of a screen. [00:27:01] Carina Cunha: Exactly. [00:27:01] Mizter Rad: Because you don't stop and think. And you're basically overwhelmed. So is, and then one question, one question here about that actually. Would you say that microdosing would, or relieves somehow this circumstance? Or could relieve this circumstance in our daily life? Or how do you see microdosing in this sense? [00:27:22] Carina Cunha: I wouldn't say that it releases it. So what I have found, you know, like with this, with the example of the mushrooms, it just made me aware of the emotions that I felt when I would be getting off these emails. It's just something that I had never put attention to. So it then made me a lot more cautious, conscious about how do I actually approach my inbox. So I started putting limits as to when do I actually go to my emails. So then I wouldn't get that stress, that I get from the inboxes right before sleep or right after sleep. And then I also take more time to now respond to emails. So it's about the changes that you make after you have that insight. In terms of microdosing, microdosing is really interesting because I think that is such a broad term. And it became popularized, but it's really dependent on what mushrooms you're having. How much you're having. How do you mix with other things. You know, sometimes if you do it with caffeine, it can change the effect. So I find that microdosing as a big, as, you know, like a term needs to be broken down by, you know, are you doing even the right microdose for you. So what we have found is that a lot of people benefit from micro doses, if done correctly. We have a partner lab that does micro doses for people, and then they ship worldwide. It's under a certain amount that is legally possible, viable. So it's a really, really interesting model. And they have a success rate of getting people out of tapering. People out of SSRIs. Like I forget, it's something like 93, 94%. So that can be quite beneficial in the sense that the mushrooms just give you like a little bit of a boost of happiness. But these insights that I'm speaking about tend to come from a higher dose. [00:29:20] Mizter Rad: So this is with Psilocybin, right? [00:29:22] Carina Cunha: Yeah, Psilocybin. Yeah. If you microdose of LSD, you tend to get a bit more energy. And Psilocybin tends to be a bit more of a mood booster. [00:29:32] Mizter Rad: What about ketamine, microdosing? Do you know anything about it? [00:29:36] Carina Cunha: I honestly I haven't done much research on it because I just find that a bit weird. You create dependency really, really fast. So I don't know how Yeah, how effective that would be. And then the pathways of Ketamine, Psilocybin and LSD tend to be slightly different. If you actually look at brain scans of neuroplasticity, you get the most neuroplasticity without LSD. Is insane if you actually look at the little neurons. The amount of connections that is being made and how... [00:30:09] Mizter Rad: let, let, let me jump in there cuz I, I think some people might not know the term neuroplasticity. [00:30:14] Carina Cunha: Of course. [00:30:14] Mizter Rad: Can you explain it in very simple terms? [00:30:17] Carina Cunha: Yeah. So neuroplasticity is just basically how malleable your brain is. So basically in our day-to-day life, our brain is a bit stuck. So if you think about a road, it's almost that like our brain has this big highways that are gonna connect a little bit of information to connect to your neurons. But then if you take psychedelics, you're almost able to create these side roads. It's almost creating a new path of like neurons talking to each other that would not otherwise talk. So then that's why after a psychedelic experience, you can be thinking about a traumatic event without potentially the emotions associated with it because during that trip, you created a new link to in your brain to access that information. So when you actually look at our of the different psychedelics, LSD, by miles, is the one that creates the most neuroplasticity. Because it's just making different parts of your brain out speak to each other. And then that effect lasts for about a week or so. So it's really important for you to know what type of information you're consuming after that, because your brain is going to be basically like, imagine the brain of a child. And it's just gonna be creating out of these new connections. So you wanna feed that good information. Mushrooms is the second one that creates the most neuroplasticity. While ketamine doesn't have that same effect. I haven't done much research on the topic. Like ... focusing on Satori, but the, the thing is that, logically I don't see that the biology of it works as well as yeah, as what you would get with LSD and Psilocybin.. But again, if somebody has any research articles on the topic, I actually would love to learn more and yeah, see if there is something. Also, just another thing that I wanted to mention is that ketamine impacts also the dopamine neuroreceptors in your brain, which is not impacted by LSD or Psilocybin.. So when you are impacting the dopamine, you can actually create addiction. And so it makes you crave. Dopamine basically makes you crave something more and more. If you do something like LSD or mushrooms, you're not going to want that thing again. You may want the experience again, but you're not going to have a biological crave for it. And in fact, it actually takes a couple of weeks for you to redose a psychedelic experience and get the same, the same high, from the same dose. So if you keep on doing psychedelics to close each other, you need to keep on increasing and then at a point you're not going to have any more effects. But with ketamine, because you have this dopamine effect, uh, the more, if you do it with too much regularity, you're going to start craving it like a cigarette. [00:33:12] Mizter Rad: So in your experience and from what you learned, what kind of side effects should be in the minds of people? Should we be more aware of when it comes to the more classic psychedelic, psilocybin and LSD? [00:33:28] Carina Cunha: Whew, side effects. So I'd say that there is some type, if you do it, there is gonna be some type of nausea involved because, your body is digesting that substance. So once you actually are in psychedelic, in a psychedelic, you're going to see that you actually experience sometimes the strengths of the visuals and the ideas in waves. So as your body's processing it, you're going to be a little bit nauseous. And then once it processes, you're going to get the visions. And then you're going, it is gonna fade a little bit, your body process a little bit more. And so there's gonna be this nausea that can come, come and go. It can really be mitigated by not eating beforehand. And just yeah, having a pretty clean diet in advance of doing psychedelics. So you can definitely not have, not need to have nausea, if you follow those steps. Also if you mix food or psychedelics, it can become like too much of a burden on your stomach and can sometimes actually slow down the absorption of the psychedelics. So it's always good to do on an empty stomach. Then in terms of other feelings that you may not expect is that you can actually get really cold or really hot at different times when your body's processing things because you know your temperature is gonna be a little bit deregulated. Tends to be more on the cold side, especially for mushrooms. And you are going to have, your hearing is going to be augmented. So you are going to be able to hear things that are at a level that it feels that even normal sounds are going to be very intense. So this can actually cause people to have bad trips when they are out in a concert or something like that. Because external stimuli is just going to be augmented, so they may not expect to hear so many things. And that, yeah, when you don't know what to expect, you can create that bit of fear. And then, yeah, and then I would say, you know, it's just a classical psychedelic experiences. So visuals, time distortion, different types of insights. I get a lot of synesthesia with L S D, which is actually really cool. So when I... [00:35:37] Mizter Rad: what is synesthesia? Sorry. [00:35:39] Carina Cunha: Yeah, it's when you can actually see music. [00:35:41] Mizter Rad: Oh. [00:35:42] Carina Cunha: So if I do a higher enough dose of LSD as I'm playing music, I can see the colors of the music, but on top of that, if I do a high enough dose, I actually see the strings on the song. So if you actually look at a heart, like do you know, a heart monitor monitor, I kind of see music like that. [00:36:02] Mizter Rad: That's amazing. [00:36:03] Carina Cunha: Vibrations. Yeah. You can only do that on a high enough dose of LSD. Um, and it's something if you do a high dose, you really need to be trips at, because it's a long experience. And but... [00:36:14] Mizter Rad: so you do this at, you do this at home rather not in a, in a public space with a lot of people. [00:36:20] Carina Cunha: No, no, no. And that's the thing. So I, I did like over a hundred trips before I ever took any psychedelic in public. And, if you ever want to do a psychedelic in public, it should do very small doses of it. Because a drive is too overwhelming. Basically, the psychedelic is not gonna give you a bad trip. You know, the psychedelic is neutral. But if you're not in control of your environment while you are not in control of your mind, you, you, you are going to have a problem there. So basically the psychedelics are just going to augment your perception of everything, give you a new way to look at at things. And then if you don't have control of that external environment, if somebody starts playing a really scary song, you're going to get scared, because you don't have the usual controls of your mind that you would have beforehand. So your neuro default mode network is not pushing down every emotion. So you need... for you to prevent that, you need to be able to control your environment. And if you have that control, it's so easy for you to get out of any bad thought pattern. You know, if something is not working and you have the control of your environment, you can just change rooms. You can just have a cup of tea, or you can just change the music. And that's already going to completely flip your psychedelic experience. But yeah, if you're, [00:37:45] Mizter Rad: yeah, I think, I think I agree with this. You know, one of the, maybe the second or the third time I tried LSD was in a festival. And it was pretty crowded, maybe thousand, 2000 people. And it was pretty good in the beginning, but , I have to say that at some point I became very paranoid and I wonder if that could be also a side effect. And I wonder if it was the fact that I was just, it was just an immense, immense place full of too many people. I was not in control, of course, cuz there was music coming from everywhere. And it was, it, it, it ended up being not the best experience actually. I don't blame L S D for that. I blame myself, if anything. Yeah. Because I've done it before, before that, and it was a beautiful experience. But this time specifically, maybe it was not the right context. [00:38:42] Carina Cunha: And I would say that if you want to do LSD out, I would do a very small amount just to give you energy, but then not pushing down your neuro default mode network. And so I actually met a lot of people at Africa Burn Burning Man that they are saying like, oh my God, lsd, I'm so scared of it. And then I asked them like, okay, so how did you do it? Oh yeah, I did it the day after I'm coming down from an MDMA in this big crowd. Oh. And I'm like, of course you're gonna have a, a bad experience. Because what happens is that your brain is trying to protect itself. Protect you. So then it's going to start seeing problems, because you are in an uncomfortable place. So yes, you're going to get paranoia. And if you were in a safe environment that you knew that all of your needs and safety were met, those feelings would not come up. Right. And that's why trip sitting is such an important thing if you're looking to explore large amounts, because you know that that person there is there to pro do everything for you. So then you don't need to actually get that cup of tea, you know, like you can actually change the music, because you know, if you are under a high enough dose of psychedelics actually being on your phone is quite difficult. And then that frustration of you not being able to do something normal can then lead you to a thought loop that is not positive. If you're going to really explore larger doses is really advisable for you to have that, support. [00:40:08] Mizter Rad: And how, how, how do you think actually psychedelics is for everyone? Like, you are a person with a background in psychology. You understand that there are different types of personalities and so would you say that certain psychedelics are or work best on certain types of, uh, personalities? [00:40:29] Carina Cunha: Totally. I think that a lot of psychedelic experiences can be felt different by people. So my background is not just in, per in psychology, but actually personality psychology. So I have seen a correlation with people with different personality types, actually having different experiences. So people that are what is considering intuitive on like the Mayers Briggs, Carl Young, personality type tend to have more visuals and future focused ideas. Whereas people that are more sensing they tend to have more memories come up. And so when you... [00:41:02] Mizter Rad: that's interesting. Wait, hold on, hold on. Do you think that it also depends on your state, your moment in life that you're experiencing? [00:41:10] Carina Cunha: Yeah, of, of course. Because if you have something major in your mind is going to be coming up. That said, I have seen more consistency on the visuals that people get from Ayahuasca to LSD. There are some people that are not as visual and they are going to have more of a feeling during the psychedelic experience. So even between me, A friend, like a, a few friends that when we were doing, um, mushrooms on New Year's, I, you know, like it was really clear, like I'm a highly visual person, so most of my psychedelic insights are going to come from visions or things that I see. Whereas like a friend of mine is quite somatic. So she experiences a lot of stuff in her body, so she needs to move a lot more and she's gonna have feelings come up that are not going to be as intense for me. So even knowing what mushroom strengths to have is quite, is quite important. So for example, I like mushroom strengths that tend to be more visual because I get that. Um, I don't like strengths that are more somatics. So for example, Ecuadorian and some of the Mexican species tends to be more body-oriented. But my friend loves them because she really gets the feelings and then she doesn't get as much from the visuals. Um, so even on the strength of mushroom is already important. There are some mushroom strengths that are going to make you more tired, some more active. LSD for me is a, it's, it is my favorite psychedelic, and they tend to produce visuals in people with a lot more consistency than mushrooms. So even if you're not as visual of a person, you're going to get something. I think that ketamine can be quite challenging for sometimes people that have a problem with losing control. Because if you're going to a K-Hole, which is what you go, when you have a ketamine fusion, you are going to be blasted out of your consciousness. Your ego is going to die, which is actually a really beautiful thing because you realize that there is something beyond your personality. And for people that have fear of losing control, that can be a really challenging experience also. [00:43:15] Mizter Rad: So how do you get into a K-Hole? , [00:43:17] Carina Cunha: you need to take a lot of, a lot of ketamine. [00:43:19] Mizter Rad: Okay. Uh, it's, and that's a, that's a snored drug, right? It's powder generally, [00:43:24] Carina Cunha: yes. Powder. People in the US have ketamine infusions. You also have lozenges, which is a ketamine tab. It's going to vary by your weight and also by how much how much ketamine you have done recently. So you can actually build a tolerance pretty fast. And then the other one is ayahuasca. So ayahuasca is getting quite popular for a lot of people, and I would say that unless you have very big issues that you're dealing with in your life, Ayahuasca can be a lot. You are purging from both ends for tell. [00:43:59] Mizter Rad: Tell us a bit about the experience because I know it, it quite, it can be quite traumatic. I've never done ayahuasca even though I'm originally from Colombia. In Colombia you find a lot of indigenous tribes, especially in the Amazon. You're from Brazil as well, you know how it is. And you see more and more tourists going there and trying them out. You see a lot of tourists here also trying, trying them out. Ayahuasca experiences in Berlin, even though I think probably it's not the same kind of experience, but tell us a bit more about Ayahuasca. I think it's fascinating. [00:44:32] Carina Cunha: Yeah, so Ayahuasca is a mix between two plants. So one is a vine. And the other one is just a leaf. And by mixing the D M T with this inhibitor that allows you to your body process ayahuasca, because if you actually have it without that enzyme, your body is going to just adjust Ayahuasca and you're not gonna see anything. So you basically take the, that combination, and then you'll get the visuals of DMT but for an extended period of time. And it can be really healing in the sense that you are going to connect with the most divine essence of anything that you can imagine. But then at the same time it's really intense. So I would equate it to like drinking water from a water hose. You know, the speed and the intensity of the visuals can be quite a lot. So I have done this ayahuasca in Peru. That was a really strong brew. And between I could, independent of, I had, if I had my eyes open or closed, I was just fully immersed in something. And then you are feeling of those things, seeing of those visuals, while also being quite ill. So a process of Ayahuasca that you are physically purging, which a lot of the indigenous tribes feel that that process of purging can be healing in itself, because as you have this emotion come up, this trauma come up for you, you are actually physically getting it out. So there is like a bit of a connection there. But at the same time it's a lot. You know, like, and for you to do proper ayahuasca, In the jungle is quite different. The ayahuasca doesn't travel that well around the world, so I have found that ayahuasca that you're having in Europe tends to be a lot weaker than what you would have somewhere else. Ayahuasca is also quite dependent on how you have been living your life beforehand. So for example, if you're a regular weed smoker, you need to quit for a month beforehand. Otherwise it may impede you from having the visuals. [00:46:31] Mizter Rad: Oh, really? [00:46:32] Carina Cunha: Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:33] Mizter Rad: So they like these two, these two substances don't, don't like each other? [00:46:38] Carina Cunha: No. Because basically weed creates a little, almost like a cap around your neurons, so then it actually, you know, that's why sometimes you have like stoners, you feel that they are like slower than normal people, because your is almost like if you had like rubber between the neurons, so then the speed of connection slows down. I'm, I'm just like, that's not exactly what happens, but just trying to... [00:47:02] Mizter Rad: yeah. Yeah. I understand. It's a very simple way of putting it. Yeah. [00:47:05] Carina Cunha: Yeah. So then you need the, you, you basically need that like cap to come out of your neurons for you to be able to properly see the visuals. And so in, you need basically a month for it to come out. So that's why when you do a test for weed, you know, they can test it on your body for a lot longer than other substances. And then also your diet. So if you have been eating a lot of salt, uh, processed foods, that's going to stay in your bloodstream, and then that can impact how you see the vigils as well. So for you to fully benefit from Ayahuasca is a process. It, you need to, you know, like really eat clean for a month beforehand and try to remove as much processed stuff, otherwise it's going to impact your experience. And then on top of that, the experience of Ayahuasca itself can be a lot. So if you have like low blood pressure, in the digestion problems and things like that, it could... you could have a physical problem while you're doing ayahuasca because you're purging a lot. So it's really important that you do it in a very well supervised, supervised place. And on top of it, the experience of ayahuasca as well can be a lot. So my first Ayahuasca experience, one of the reasons why I don't think I benefited from it much, is that I was in a place with like about 40 people. They were drumming and singing and all of that. And I kept on being distracted from going inwards, because there was so much going on externally. And that's actually how I came up with the idea of Satori in the first place. Because I realized how, how nuanced an ayahuasca experience needs to be for you to properly benefit from that. And a lot of times people don't realize that. So if someone wants to do ayahuasca, I would say do it in a very small group. Because if there is a bunch of people purging next to you during your ayahuasca session, that can actually make the session worse for you, because... [00:49:10] Mizter Rad: that's a bit disturbing. Yeah. [00:49:12] Carina Cunha: Yeah. If you hear somebody like puking their brain out, and you are like there in already having a challenging experience because there is so many visuals, it's not great. Like, and then, and then you know, like, you need to be pretty well supported because when you go to good retreats, they're going to be giving you water, have like a bucket to help you, help you manage things because it's really taxing on the body. So, I tend to not recommend people to do ayahuasca, unless they have some big thing that they are trying to get over. So it's really, [00:49:46] Mizter Rad: so the intention is important. [00:49:48] Carina Cunha: Totally. So if you are just wanting to explore different psychedelics, I would say start with mushrooms, LSD. If you feel really curious about ayahuasca, build up to it. But don't, don't start your first psychedelic experience with ayahuasca. It's kind of, it's almost like driving a Ferrari without a driver's license. [00:50:07] Mizter Rad: That's a good one. [00:50:08] Carina Cunha: Yeah, [00:50:09] Mizter Rad: that's a good tagline. [00:50:12] Carina Cunha: Yeah, and I would say that a Ferrari may also like be, you know, in a hail and like rain. So it's not like, it is not how positive. So I would say that ayahuasca usually starts as actually being quite challenging, because it brings up all of the things that you have not been looking at. And then it always end up, ends up being positive at the end, but you are there to do work. It's like literally being 10, 10 years of therapy in the night. Right? That's that. I also need to caveat with something is that sometimes ayahuasca doesn't work. So not only because of the weed, because of the process things in your body. Sometimes people actually mix the ayahuasca incorrectly and so it's not very active. That's actually a big challenge. So I even encountered that when I went to a retreat in Costa Rica where The first night I barely felt anything and I was just purging. And then the second night, my visions were pretty faded and I am, you know, like every ayahuasca I have had before, I had that, the ability to see things. So I really think that, and then I also was speaking to other participants and we all felt that. And so it's, it can be quite common that you may not get the best mix. And that's even more so if you're doing outside of South America, because the plants could have spoiled in the process. But sometimes people need to cook it, so sometimes you can overcook the ayahuasca and then the nature halts the substances. [00:51:44] Mizter Rad: You have a, you have a, in Satori Health, you have a network of facilitators, of retreats, experiences, and also coaches. How do you make sure you work with the right people? Because you're telling me here that there might be a lot of places or experiences that are not providing the right environment or the right experience. How do you make sure you select or you work with the good ones? [00:52:09] Carina Cunha: I would say that to add to that, it's not just about the substance, but also the people that are facilitating it. Because in the, in this industry there is a lot what is called spiritual narcissism. It's people that tend to use their status as a spiritual leader. And you can actually see that quite often in churches. About one, one third of priests have that, um, where they... because it's quite an easy place for each manipulate people and people are very vulnerable. And especially more so when you go for something that is alternative, like psychedelics. You can have a lot of people that are using that position of power to try to force their own belief systems onto people or to sometimes even, uh, process their own stuff. So I actually have seen shamans that are using their clients, as a foil to their own problems, which was quite quite upsetting when I saw them. [00:53:03] Mizter Rad: That's really disturbing. [00:53:05] Carina Cunha: Yeah. [00:53:05] Mizter Rad: So why, why do you think, why do you think there is such a bad image in, in psychedelics in general? Is it because of that or, or do you think there's something beyond that? I mean, you know, in the first place. Yeah. Is, is there a lot of maybe gatekeepers in society that don't want this out? [00:53:24] Carina Cunha: Uh, there is so much to it. We could do an entire podcast on this one. But just for me to finish that, that previous thought is that with Satori what we do is that we only work with people with, that we have personally met or have been recommended by our network. Because that vetting process of making sure that the person is emotionally clean, and are not going to be pushing their own baggage into clients, is super important. And then in terms of the perception for psychedelics, it really started with Nixon. When there was the Vietnam War and people were being conscious opposers to that. And in like the span of like 10 years, you had psychedelics being hailed as the wonder substance, to now being associated with people that ...the hippy society. And so once America started creating that war on drugs, which got then perpetuated by Reagan, there was an entire marketing campaign to really make it seem as the most scary thing that you could imagine. That it was, that it would create out of, out of the bad things. And I also think that there is a lot of people that take psychedelics without proper care knowledge. So then you hear about bad trips. But then it's not a bad trip, it's because people did stupid things. Because you don't have the proper education. Because it got pushed down on the, on the ground. If psychedelics were not something that people are doing without knowledge, without understanding, you would have a lot fewer stories of bad trips. So I think that that's part of the process. And in terms of gatekeepers, I think that there is a lot of gatekeepers even that are offering psychedelics to people. That's what spiritual narcissism is. And that's something, that's the reason why we Satori, we want to create the radical self-empowerment program. Because we believe that that connection to the divine to source cure essence should be something that is catalyzed by other people, but it should be inherently yours. If there is ever a shaman or a facilitator that makes you feel that they are your connection to this, then that's somebody that you should be watching out for. [00:55:35] Mizter Rad: Tell me more about a, a little bit about the process that you go through with a client when they go to your website and they reach out to you, what happens next? [00:55:45] Carina Cunha: Yeah, so we meet with people once, one, and I try to better understand, um, why they are interested in psychedelics. What's their drive, what is their history as well, you know, because, um, a lot of things can surface during that experience. And with that I also try to understand people's experiences. Budget as well, because obviously cost is involved with travel. And then we try to find the best fit based, you know, of those criteria. Like we, we discuss with people, like we have calls between 15 minutes to an hour, depending of how much discussion people want to have or what's their needs and questions. And from that we really go over every option that they have. And then try to find something that feels like the right, the right fit for them at that time in life. Yeah, sometimes people come to us and then they are on the SSRIs and you cannot be doing psychedelics with SSRIs. So what we have done in the past is that we have helped people taper off from the SSRIs through a microdosing program, and then go to a Satori experience later... three, four months later. So it's really tailored and that's why I even created Satori because you cannot put a blanket approach for people. We all come with different experiences. We all are in different places, our, in our lives. Things also can cost quite. You can have such a range in terms of costs as well, that we need to really tailor the psychedelic experience to the individual. Rather having them, having the individual try to tailor themselves for that. [00:57:24] Mizter Rad: Do you have a feeling that after covid and after the reaction of our governments of locking us down and limiting our social lives, a lot of people got affected mentally and the lookout for this kind of substances increased? [00:57:40] Carina Cunha: Yes, totally. There was a peak on the search for Ayahuasca, I think during covid, like 400% on Google trends. So I think that people just are now because of Covid, realizing how much mental health actually plays a role in their lives. And they are also realizing that traditional therapy and drugs don't actually help. Because when you actually look at an ssri, the effectiveness of something like this is about 35 to 39% I, and then the placebo effect that you get to something around 30%. So you have like... [00:58:16] Mizter Rad: sorry, can, sorry to interrupt. What is the SSRI again? [00:58:19] Carina Cunha: Uh, uh, antidepressants. The most antidepressants. Alright. Um, and so they, you are going to see that you only have like about five to 9% effectiveness above placebo. Which for all of the ways that you have impact of the substances on your body where you can make you feel, not be able to feel things or can make you lethargic and interrupt your sleep can ha give sexual problems. Um, it's a lot. And when you actually think, look at the neurochemistry of these substances, they are almost like taking a small dose of M D M A. For the, like every day. And so once you start them, it becomes really hard for you to stop because you are going to feel slightly better in the beginning. And then you're going to need to keep on increasing your dose to have the same effects. And sometimes you need to stop increasing your dose because then you can have a lot of side effects like agitation and anxiety and other things. So sometimes they add you more drugs to make and that work. I, at one point I was putting into like four different types. It was insane. And then on top of that, if you try to actually quit, because your brain created a dependency on it, because what it basically does is that it prevents your brain to pick up serotonin so it creates an artificial flood of serotonin in your brain, it's going to then make you unable to stop and get back to your baseline. So you are actually going to feel worse, if you try to stop antidepressants than you did when you started them. And it takes a really long time for you to do that. That's why people taper off. But even for even years after SSRIs, you may actually, potentially have changed in neurochemistry. So it took me a long time after I stopped to fully get back to how I felt beforehand. [01:00:15] Mizter Rad: It's interesting because when you look at the pharma industry, and you mentioned all these drugs that normally people on depression have to go through that are actually recommended by the doctor, you would think that they might be against all these movements of psychedelics and mushrooms and, LSD for therapy and stuff like that. But at the same time when I was, preparing for the interview, I realized that there's a lot of private companies already using Psilocybin or L S D or similar substances in clinical trials to get out there with products that are actually for the mass market. [01:01:01] Carina Cunha: Yeah. So what they are trying to do is that they are trying to create an analogous compound that is just changed slightly. So then they can patent it. So there is a lot of controversy around the pharma industry. [01:01:14] Mizter Rad: Okay. So they still want control . [01:01:16] Carina Cunha: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they just, they realize that the movement is happening and there is no way to stop it. And so now what they are trying to do is monetize it. So a lot of these substances that you actually see, this drug development companies, you don't actually need them because the stuff that we have is pretty good. [01:01:32] Mizter Rad: Right. Um, and you can grow mushrooms in your backyard as well. [01:01:36] Carina Cunha: Yeah. And so, so these natural things are actually, you know, and a lot of times people think that LSD is on natural. LSD actually comes from the fungus, right? So it's just they distilled mushrooms. It's the ergot fungus. So these things work. And if we just made them available. With the proper guidance, we wouldn't need to be developing new substances. The reason why we're developing new substances: one is to counter to be able to do things legally. Because if you create a substance that's slightly different to me, not be illegal. And then two, which is the biggest reason, is so they can patent it, and then, uh, monetize that entire process. What I have found is that some of the substances that are analogous to L S D lack a little bit of a divinity component to it. So I have tried some and you get a lot of visuals. You get some of those more like fun aspects, but then sometimes it feels that that true connection to source is missing. Which, if you're thinking about a pharma company, is actually quite useful, because a person is not properly healed. They are going to keep on potentially wanting to have that substance, because it gets them almost there, but not really there. [01:02:51] Mizter Rad: So where are the, where, where is the best LSD that you can find so far? [01:02:55] Carina Cunha: Yeah, so I have found that it's... the Netherlands has really great one. I actually have gotten pretty good one from Brazil before. California is terrible, terrible. [01:03:07] Mizter Rad: California is terrible in terms of quality, but in terms of the law and the accessibility to it is much better than Europe, isn't it? [01:03:16] Carina Cunha: No. Uh, I would say that there are a lot of decriminalized cities here, so then if you do psychedelics there, you're not gonna be punished by law. But the substances that I have found in the US are in a lot poorer quality than Europe. And I think that is because the drug enforcement agencies are quite strong here, that people are doing them in without the right facilities and support. So it can be quite challenging to synthesize LSD appropriately, because if you miss any part of the process you may actually make the con the ingredients inactive. So you have sometimes ...yeah, so sometimes you actually have the substances that don't actually work anymore and you're taking, and you only get part of it. And so yeah, I have this entire group of people that I have met in Stanford, San Francisco, LA, that they have taken LSD many, many times. You cannot see my air quote right now, but they are actually not taking LSD. They are just taking some random thing. And I don't know what the neurotoxicity is of that. So it concerns me a lot, because it could actually be damaging the brain rather than enhancing it. [01:04:30] Mizter Rad: Hmm. So it is a big problem also to source the right pure purity in these substances as well. [01:04:38] Carina Cunha: Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why, you know, we, we have Satori as well because people shouldn't be having to do years of research to have access to this. So we are doing that for them. Make sure that if a person decides to do a psychedelic experience, they're going to have the right substance that fits their needs and that is gonna be properly supervised. [01:05:02] Mizter Rad: That sounds fantastic. Carina, I appreciate very much your time. I really learn a lot from your experiences and from your knowledge. I'm very grateful that you managed to share your time with us as well. And maybe next time we can take, uh, mushroom together and have a conversation under a trip. [01:05:24] Carina Cunha: Yeah, that would be interesting. I would be interested in doing L S D, because sometimes mushrooms, um... LSD makes you more clear minded. Whereas mushrooms can make you sometimes a bit confused. [01:05:36] Mizter Rad: Okay. That sounds good. Well see the only, the only time I took mushrooms was in a very beautiful mountain next to Bogota. And there was music, and there was one guy playing the guitar. There was a Bon bonfire in the middle. We had taken Rapé before. Have you tried Rapé before? As well? [01:05:53] Carina Cunha: Quite interesting for catalyze Ayahuasca. [01:05:57] Mizter Rad: Exactly. It was a very beautiful experience to clean yourself up in the beginning, and then the two, 2.5 grams of mushrooms in a brownie form. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , it was great, but yeah. Then let's do LSD next time. [01:06:09] Carina Cunha: Yeah. And by the way, I also just want to caveat that different species of mushrooms actually impact you differently. There are some that are more clear minded. But the LSD, it feels like your brain is powered to a super computer. So cool. [01:06:23] Mizter Rad: Absolutely cool. Sounds amazing. [01:06:26] Carina Cunha: Have a great day. [01:06:28] Mizter Rad: Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day there in San Francisco. And until, sorry, in LA. [01:06:35] Carina Cunha: Yes. [01:06:35] Mizter Rad: Right. [01:06:36] Carina Cunha: Thank you. [01:06:37] Mizter Rad: Okay. Until next time. Yeah. [01:06:38] Carina Cunha: Bye. [01:06:39] Mizter Rad: Chao. Muito obrigado. [01:06:41] Carina Cunha: De nada.