Robin Carhart-Harris

The Way of the Psychonaut explores the life and work of Stanislav Grof, Czech-born psychiatrist and psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer. Stan’s quest for knowledge and insights into the healing power of non-ordinary states of consciousness, influenced the discipline of psychology and profoundly changed many individual lives. One of those transformed by Stan is filmmaker Susan Hess Logeais. The documentary utilizes Susan’s personal existential crisis as a gateway to Grof’s impact, from the micro to the macro.

In The Doors of Perception (1954), Aldous Huxley wrote that the urge to transcend self-consciousness was "a principle appetite of the soul." He hoped that psychedelics would make the experience of self-transcendence more widely available, and thereby catalyze a transformation in the culture. But experiencing ego dissolution is one thing; integrating it into ordinary life is another. And, as the misadventures of the 1960s attest, building a culture around self-transcendence is a perilous (if inspiring) endeavor. “Unraveling the Dream,” a new film presented by the Waking Up meditation app, explores whether the new science of psychedelics might shed fresh light on Huxley’s vision. Featuring original interviews with Anil Seth, Robin Carhart-Harris, and Shamil Chandaria, the film takes viewers on a sweeping journey to the frontiers of neuroscience and through the rich, turbulent history of psychedelics.

In 2012 a team of medical researchers asked themselves, "what would happen if we gave psilocybin (magic mushrooms) to people suffering from severe depression"? It took them three years to get the necessary permissions to find out.