Consciousness Was Always the Point

In 2018 Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind was published, ushering in an updated, accessible dialogue about psychedelics. I’ve yet to meet anyone working in this space who refutes Pollan’s positive impact on the field of psychedelic medicine, from fringe to the future of mental health. People who were unlikely to trip were now open to journey. Therapists noticed shifts in “stuck” clients. Investors bet on ibogaine. Moms were on mushrooms. Politicians found consensus.

If you’re reading this newsletter, then you, too, were likely influenced by Pollan’s sidequest into the deeper dilemmas of omnivores. Perhaps you, like me, were anticipating how the release of his follow-up book, A World Appears, in February of this year would influence public discourse around consciousness. My personal interest in consciousness was piqued by my work and experiences with psychedelics, and the sequence of the release of his books hints that Pollan’s curiosity followed a similar trajectory.

But the 3x search queries for consciousness versus psychedelics suggest the inverse: An individual’s interest in consciousness may lead them to psychedelics as one of the few tools that reliably and dramatically shift what it feels like to be alive in their own mind. a live experiment. proof that the mind is more porous than, well, we thought.

We won’t fully understand the impact of Pollan’s newest book for another 18 months or so. Cultural shifts rarely happen all at once. There was an arc after How to Change Your Mind. Then COVID arrived, and suddenly people were isolated, fearful, and microdosing psilocybin. Fast forward to the president’s executive order last month, and minds have changed, indeed.

Pollan may have been a singular influence on psychedelics in 2018, but the 2x increase in search queries for consciousness between November 2025 and February 2026 is likely due to last year’s significant increase in media coverage of consciousness related to AI ethics across major outlets.

What you’ll learn in this post:

• Why your interest in consciousness may have led you to psychedelics, and not the other way around — and what the search data suggests about which one people are really chasing

• What consciousness actually is — the difference between information your brain processes and the experience that happens to you

• How psychedelics work on neuroplasticity and neurogenesis — and why loosening rigid patterns matters more than “rewiring” ever did

• The feedback loop between brain and awareness — how experience shapes the brain, the brain shapes consciousness, and consciousness shapes what comes next

• What separates ordinary from non-ordinary consciousness — and why childbirth, grief, sex, and awe belong on the same list as a psychedelic journey

• Why we were never meant to live constantly in ordinary consciousness — and what it costs neurodivergent minds in particular

• What AI changes about all of this — and why outsourcing the ordinary might be the invitation to become extraordinarily non-ordinary

• I think one of the things I loved the most about this gathering is how organic and natural it felt. I imagine that every one of these events would feel slightly different, and that is part of what is magical about what you are creating.

• Thank you for this fascinating introduction to wonderful women.

• The evening was memorable and meaningful. I had never tried psilocybin. I knew my “first time” had to be in a managed environment with an experienced facilitator. You absolutely provided that experience, so thank you!

• Thank you so much for creating this beautiful healing space for women.

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Consciousness is the felt experience of being aware. The difference between information your brain processes and information you actually experience. Seeing, hearing, hurting, noticing yourself noticing lives in the part of the mind that makes experience present rather than just handled in the background.

Scientists argue about the boundaries of consciousness because there are at least two sides: the level of awareness (awake, asleep, somewhere between) and the content of it (what you’re aware of right now).

I want to focus on the word awareness. If you’ve been reading this Substack over the last 12 months, then you have certainly been introduced to the idea that awareness is where change begins. In fact, the last podcast episode featuring Lizzie Cutler includes audio dedicated to this very topic.

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Psychedelics support both coming into awareness and expanding capacity to embody the shifts that may follow. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to rewire itself in response to experience. When your attention shifts, when a habit loosens, when your sense of self softens, plasticity is one of the mechanisms underneath. Neurogenesis is narrower. It’s the birth of new neurons, mostly studied in the hippocampus, tied to learning, memory, and mood regulation.

Neuroplasticity shapes the content and flexibility of consciousness, while neurogenesis adds new biological capacity that can support that flexibility over time. Consciousness is the lived experience that emerges from all of this.

Consciousness depends on plasticity, but it also drives it. What you repeatedly notice, rehearse, or sit with can reshape the brain, and that reshaped brain changes what becomes available to awareness. A feedback loop: experience shapes the brain, the brain shapes consciousness, and consciousness shapes future experience.

Psychedelics appear to promote both plasticity and altered conscious experience. Rather than creating consciousness from scratch, psychedelics loosen rigid patterns long enough for something new to take hold.