- [Announcer] "Your Fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Dennis Lockhart in memory of Mary Rose Taylor, and by... (light music) - Welcome to "Your Fantastic Mind."

I'm Jaye Watson.

Researchers and clinicians are constantly striving to provide medicines and therapies to treat various mental health conditions.

The goal, to help people get better, but not all treatments work for all people.

It's not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

That is why attention has returned to something that seemed to hold great promise over half a century ago before they were banned, psychedelics.

In tonight's episode, we are taking you inside a new clinical trial where people will take psychedelics in an effort to alleviate their suffering.

We were allowed to follow the first patient in the study from day one, including the day of the psychedelic experience and after.

This is the story of what happened.

(light music) (funky music) For many, the word psychedelic conjures images of the '60s, a time and a counterculture movement that included experimentation of psychedelic drugs.

- Turn on, tune in, drop out.

- [Jaye] Timothy Leary was one of the most famous advocates of psychedelics.

- He was on the faculty at Harvard, and he was very interested in these compounds and started studying them, and came to be a big believer in their powers for transformation and quickly went off the rails by pushing their use far beyond the evidence base that supported their use, and he was fired from Harvard in 1963.

It didn't take long.

It's a very important lesson for our field that we cannot let the promise and excitement get ahead of the research base.

- [Jaye] By the end of the 1960s, LSD was banned.

(mellow music) Other psychedelics came along and were also banned.

But in the past 20 years, there has been a resurgence of research into psychedelics and how they might benefit people for whom traditional mental health therapies fail.

Studies of one such psychedelic, psilocybin, show promising results in treating depression, anxiety, and fear of death with a terminal diagnosis.

What makes psychedelics different is that they often create a spiritual experience for the person taking them.

Psychedelics are not new.

The use of psilocybin, a molecule present in certain types of mushrooms, can be traced back thousands of years to Indigenous peoples who use them for medicine and in ceremonies.

This exploration and study of psilocybin is bringing together science and spirituality, and the tension between measurable data and spiritual experiences is real, but so is the acknowledgement that it's time to come together to alleviate suffering.

- Psychiatry's gotta be brave enough to say we are secure enough in what we know and what we do that we can extend into this more nebulous area of spirituality and still retain our integrity as a medical profession dedicated to healing.

- Right.

- [Jaye] Psychiatrist Boadie Dunlop and spiritual health clinician George Grant are the founders and co-directors of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality.

- To be able to sit with people in their suffering is what psychedelic medicine is all about.

- Psychiatry, this is Tanya.

- The main goal is to identify the way in which spirituality can improve medical outcomes, psychiatric and physical outcomes.

It may be that psychedelics are a way to get there.

The evidence to date suggests they are a powerful means, but I don't consider it established.

- [Jaye] In its first ever trial, the center is combining psychotherapy, spiritual care, and psilocybin in a rigorous trial that will hopefully end with healing.

If it works, it could help others.

The number of people in crisis has only grown the past several years.

- [Boadie] We do know that there is an epidemic of loneliness.

We do know people are more disconnected, more isolated, more living through virtual experiences.

The consequences to mental health appear to be quite bad.

If we look at the rates of anxiety and depression in our youth, it's a tragedy.

We need to come find a way to restore a sense of connectedness.

Maybe psychedelics will be part of that, maybe not, but that's a direction we need to get and heading towards very soon.

Hey, Mr. Applebury.

I'm Boadie Dunlop.

I'm a psychiatrist.

- [Jaye] The journey to see if psilocybin works begins now.

- This is an important study because we need to establish the safety and the efficacy of the application of psychedelics.

It may be that this is not going to work.

We cannot just assume the answer in science.

We need to build an evidence base.

So you can take a seat right there for me.

- [Jaye] Wesley Applebury is 29 years old.

He is the first participant in this trial that will include 10 people who have or have had cancer and who are demoralized.

Demoralization is common among cancer survivors and is characterized by hopelessness, helplessness, and a loss of meaning in life.

- So a sense that, what is my life for?

Why should I even try?

I have this cancer.

It could come back.

At any time in the past-- - [Jaye] Today is a structured diagnostic interview for psychiatric diagnoses to assess Wesley's safety and thoughts of suicide.

- In the last two weeks, did you repeatedly think about death?

Did you have any thoughts of killing yourself?

Is the death of your father the most traumatic experience you've had to go through?

- Yeah, I think a lot about that.

I've seen my dad dead.

- [Jaye] Dr. Ali John Zarrabi is a palliative care doctor who wrote the protocol for the study and who sees Wesley as an ideal candidate.

- Wesley wants to heal himself, and I think he believes in the power of self-healing.

I think Wesley's at a really important transition in his life where he's not dying from this cancer.

It could return, and he's living with so much morbidity and debility from it.

He has pain from the disease, his social structure has dramatically changed, and on top of that, cancer doesn't exist in a vacuum.

He has all of these family issues.

- [Professional] I would say you're probably using both sides more equally.

- [Ali] I can refer people to physical therapy.

- [Professional] Do one more coming this side, this way and back.

- I can give you a pill for depression.

I can provide you some counseling and therapy for those big questions like, who am I now?

What's going to become of me?

Especially the people who kept numbing the pain, the emotional and physical pain.

I felt at a loss.

I hope something changes, and that's all I hope for.

- [Wesley] We are in my house in downtown Milledgeville.

- [Jaye] A Milledgeville, Georgia native, Wesley says he experienced a traumatic childhood.

He now lives in this cottage in his hometown with his cat, Two Chains.

- [Wesley] Two Chains, you were the littlest, bittiest man.

- [Jaye] He was diagnosed with cancer.

at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

- I had stage four Ewing sarcoma that presented in the pleural lining of my like left chest wall and then pushed forward, collapsing my left lung, and then it spread into the T2, T3, and T4 vertebrae.

Nobody told me I was gonna live.

I think the best odds I got were like 20% to make it and the most consistent odds were at 15% to beat it.

12 rounds of chemotherapy and 28 rounds of radiation.

It paralyzed me from the chest down.

I had to learn how to walk again, all in a pandemic.

You know, it was all very isolating.

I did most of my cancer therapies alone.

This was him at GMC.

- [Jaye] During his treatment, Wesley's father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Wesley was his father's caregiver until his death a few months ago.

- I was sitting where you are when my dad died.

Right in there.

(sighs) I cry every day.

It's hard to get any joy out of anything anymore.

It's hard to feel like I belong anywhere.

I guess that's a big part of it.

I really don't feel like I belong.

- [Jaye] Wesley's hope for the trial.

- Yeah, man, I want to feel like I belong somewhere.

I want to feel like I have a purpose.

Yeah, that's consistently been an issue.

- [Jaye] To prepare for the psilocybin experience, Wesley will do suicidality assessments at each appointment, along with blood draws and other assessments.

- [Therapist] Wesley, I'm George.

(light music) - [Jaye] The bulk of his preparation will be three two-hour sessions with psychotherapists Shannon Jones and George Grant.

They will be with Wesley the day he takes the medicine to support him through the experience.

- [Wesley] The sadness is more just like a heaviness, kind of, I don't know, kind of tinges everything.

Everything's got like a shade of sadness to it.

- I served in the parish as a parish pastor for five years knowing that I really wanted to specialize in healthcare.

- [Jaye] George Grant entered his vocation traditionally as an ordained Methodist minister.

- [George] That's really where I felt called to be, was to be with people who are suffering in moments of crisis.

- [Jaye] He's now the Executive Director of Spiritual Health at Emory and has spent years at the bedsides of patients and families in crisis, people of all faiths and no faith.

Part of his desire to do this is personal.

- When I was 14, my father died suddenly and I was just emoting and grieving like any person would, and a nurse with a hypodermic needle put me down and stopped my grief of the moment.

From that point forward I was determined to be something different and to be about something different for people in healthcare crises.

Well, this is the last day of our training out in Colorado.

- [Jaye] Last summer, George went to Colorado to train in psychedelic medicine.

(soft music) - [George] It was an injection for the first session, and then it was liquid form for a second session.

(exotic music with chanting vocals) - [Jaye] Part of the training involved George receiving ketamine, a drug that can have hallucinogenic effects (exotic music) and is often used in the treatment of depression.

- I was really quite surprised that it was very psychedelic.

It's not commonly referred to as a psychedelic per se, but it manifested itself in feeling drawn and outside of myself and out of my constriction as a human, really, and I almost felt as if I were drawn into my own brain in some ways.

So the experience for me was very unifying, that I was meeting myself in a real embrace of love.

There was just some beauty in it.

It felt like I was whole.

That's the way it manifested within me.

Listen to the sounds in your peaceful place.

- [Jaye] George sees himself in Wesley and hopes the psilocybin can help him.

- If it's possible for him to have some breakthrough, an emotional breakthrough out of which, you know, is accompanied, you know, by this safe experience, that that could mean the world to him in terms of his future.

But, you know, we can't prognosticate what's going to occur, but I am hopeful.

(light music) - I think the psychiatric community is very split, and that's because just as I was when I first thought about this as a treatment, we see so much harm from drugs of abuse.

We see so many lives, so many families that get derailed, sometimes destroyed, because people are addicted and unable to control their use of substances.

(keys clicking) - [Jaye] Despite his hesitation, Dr. Dunlop kept reading and learning about psilocybin.

The FDA has granted psilocybin a breakthrough therapy designation, meaning that it may offer substantial improvement over currently available therapy, which allows it to move faster through the lengthy clinical trials process.

Throughout his years of treating people with mental health disorders, Dr. Dunlop has had patients who spent years working to get better, but traditional treatments did not work.

When it comes to psilocybin, studies sometimes showed dramatic benefit in a single treatment.

- To see sustained benefit after a single dose of psilocybin that lasted for a year in several of these patients really opened my eyes to thinking, maybe I can get excited about this one.

Psychedelics do something very specific.

They are partial agonists, which means they partially turn on a type of serotonin receptor called the 5HT2A receptor, and we believe that is the mechanism by which these experiences that people have are driven.

(light music) Psychedelics are the most likely of the substances to create experiences that might be classified as mystical or spiritual.

A sense of unity with the world, a deep insight, feeling like one has a knowing of how the world really is, a sense of connectedness of things, a sense of connection to a supreme being.

They often rate among the top five most meaningful experiences of their life.

- [Jaye] Part of what happens with a psychedelic like psilocybin is that it allows parts of the brain to talk that normally don't communicate.

- What psilocybin seems to do is to break up the rigidity of those connections, so parts of the brain that aren't normally in communication with each other now become in communication with each other, and that seems to open up possibilities for understanding and connecting things in one's mind that otherwise one wouldn't normally be able to access.

- [Jaye] Studies have shown that even a month after a single dose of psilocybin, the brain's network connectivity is still different.

In some instances it can help people get unstuck, and Dr. Dunlop uses this analogy.

- [Boadie] The brain is like a ski slope, and people ski down in tracks and you leave a track behind you and you can follow that track of your skis, and that's kind of carved into your brain.

These are the pathways, these are the networks.

Well, imagine the snowplow coming along and just like erasing all that.

- [Jaye] It seems to give the brain a fresh start.

- We don't really know the biological processes that seem to lead to psilocybin's effects.

There are different theories.

One is that the thalamus, which is a part of the brain that regulates what information comes into our cortex, kind of gets downregulated and so it does less filtering of information and so more stuff is just coming through.

So we can think about it in terms of networks and information flow, but we can also think about it in the terms of the connections between the cells and the brain, between neurons, which are called synapses, and we know that psilocybin induces the formation of new synapses in the brain, and basically all learning that we experience through life is because synapses are changing their connections.

They're getting stronger or weaker as we remember or not remember things.

And so psilocybin induces a state of increased synaptic potential there, and when you have increased synaptic growth you have the capacity to incorporate new learning, which is what is so unique about psychedelics.

They are inducing this new learning state, biological state, while you're having a psychological experience of quite profound power, and so you are learning, you are having that experience while you're most capable of learning it and incorporating it.

- [Wesley] Yeah, scanxiety is a very real phenomenon.

(Wesley sighs) - I want you lie down on the table.

- Hands over my head, right?

- Yep, you got it.

- Alrighty.

- [Jaye] Wesley is at Emory Midtown Hospital for his 18-month scans.

That's how long he has been clear of the cancer.

- For me, scanxiety usually starts about a month before I actually go to the scan, going up for the scan itself in the same place I was receiving treatment, you know, all the smells, all the rooms.

It's very much a traumatic experience to have to go get another set of cancer scans and then sit and wait and wait and wait and see what the results are gonna be.

I'm being very anxious right now.

Of course waiting.

You know, you're sitting there, like, oh, yep, it came back and it's terminal and they don't know how to tell me.

Of course, that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

- [Jaye] A few hours after he arrives, he finally gets the news.

- Scan wise is good.

Blood wise is good.

- [Jaye] Emory oncologist Dr. William Read III.

- If it's around, it usually shows up sooner or later, and the longer a guy goes with nothing showing up, the more likely it is that he's cured.

He was treated with the intent to cure.

Looking more and more like he's cured, but the fight is done and he's in the cleanup mode.

That's pretty cool.

After that, it's all gravy.

- [Professional] It's pharmacologic history.

Do we need to do that or are y'all already?

- Let's take a journey inside of our bodies.

- [Jaye] By the time Wesley and George and Shannon are in their final session the day before he takes the psilocybin, they have built rapport.

- So maybe we just sit on either side.

- [Jaye] And trust.

They are ready.

- I mean, I just gotta let it happen.

- [Jaye] The focus today is on tomorrow's experience.

If we need to maybe do some breathing.

- [Jaye] The hope of what might happen.

- [Shannon] Does it feel good right now to think about that?

- It feels really good.

- [Shannon] We get to spend the day together.

That's fun.

- Yeah, all right, my friend.

Well, see you bright and early in the morning.

- Yeah, yep.

Sounds great.

(soft music) - Today is medicine day.

Everyone's anticipating good things, and Shannon and I are gonna be there for Wesley as he goes through his journey.

It's a good thing.

- [Jaye] Medicine day is eight hours long, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

The experience from the psilocybin will last four to six hours.

- [Wesley] A little anxious, but overall good.

- [Jaye] Dr. Dunlop administers 25 milligrams of synthetic psilocybin, which ensures precise dosing.

- Do you have any last questions before we begin?

- I'm good.

- You got 'em all answered.

- Yep.

- Okay.

So I'm gonna give you the medicine.

It's just one pill, okay?

And I want you to drink it with plenty of water, okay?

- Cheers, guys.

- [George] Cheers.

(Wesley gulps and sighs) - All right, thanks, doc.

- [George] You're welcome.

All right, so gonna leave you- - See you on the other side.

Thanks.

(peaceful music) - [Jaye] Within the first hour, Wesley notices sensations.

- I feel a little tingling.

It feels good though.

It feels really good.

- [Jaye] He says he feels a shift in his body.

- I felt really hollow for a really long time, so it's nice to like inhabit my own body again.

It's weird, like being all the way on my body again.

It feels really nice not to be so rigid for once.

- [Jaye] He seems to soften toward himself.

- I guess there's that spark of the divine in me.

I've already got the white light that I need.

That's cool to say out loud.

Yes, you know, seeing that like goodness in myself for once, maybe the first time.

I think I've always felt it but I've never been able to like get this close to it.

I'm really peaceful.

It's scary how relaxing this is.

- [Shannon] Enjoy it.

- Yeah, this is wonderful.

(Wesley sighs) - [Jaye] In the second hour, his experience intensifies.

- I'm all shaky now, like internally shaky.

Yeah, it's a little uncomfortable now.

- [Shannon] A little uncomfortable.

- Yeah, would one of y'all mind holding my hands?

Maybe that might be nice.

Maybe both of you.

Both of you'd be pretty cool.

- Yeah.

(Wesley sighs) We got you.

- Thanks.

- [Jaye] He grieves his cancer diagnosis.

- Haven't really given myself much space to grieve that 27-year-old version of me.

- [George] Right.

- [Jaye] And the loss of his father.

- I'm proud to be a son.

We did really good work together.

It's really sad that it's over.

- [Jaye] And then he says this about the cancer he has feared will return.

- The cancer's gone.

It's not coming back.

(machine beeping) - [Jaye] George takes Wesley's vitals every hour, his blood pressure and heart rate.

- Yeah, we're just in the really like intense phase of the adventure right now.

(laughs) Oh boy.

(laughs) A little scary, I'm not gonna lie.

Yeah, I really appreciate y'all being here to hold my hands throughout this.

- [Jaye] Wesley shows George and Shannon the scar from his spinal resection to remove the cancer.

- But yeah, there she is.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- [Jaye] Wesley lies down and closes his eyes, and for the next hour he is quiet.

He looks peaceful.

At times there is a smile on his face and quiet laughter.

(Wesley chuckles) And then he is back.

- So it's nice to be back on earth for a few minutes.

- [George] Yeah, sure.

- Not quite sure where I went.

It was a lot of fun, but.

(chuckles) Very nice to feel that connection again.

Been a long damn time.

It's nice to give myself permission to feel things again.

It's nice to be safe to feel things again.

(light music) - [Jaye] Wesley holds George and Shannon's hands and lies down again, this time for not quite as long.

- Stretch out, just a little.

There we go.

That's feeling a little better to move some.

- [Jaye] As his experience draws to a close, Wesley is reminded to go home and to get some sleep, and they will begin processing all of it tomorrow.

(soft music) This is the first of three integrative sessions Wesley will do with George and Shannon to integrate and process the psilocybin experience and to incorporate it into his everyday life.

- I guess transformative.

You know, I like finally came into myself.

You know, I don't feel broken anymore.

- [Jaye] We meet with Wesley one week after taking the psilocybin.

What was last Tuesday like?

- Incredible.

I felt loved.

That's what happened.

I really and truly felt loved again and cared for.

- [Jaye] It's impossible not to notice the difference in Wesley since we first interviewed him in his Milledgeville, Georgia, home a month ago.

As we sit here today, are you depressed?

- No, which I never thought I'd be able to tell you.

I never envisioned a future for myself where there wasn't like some kind of depression or some little something there in the back that just wasn't quite right.

(light music) - [Jaye] Wesley shares what happened during his experience.

- Absolutely had a spiritual experience.

There's no other way to describe what happened.

During the peak of the medicine, it really seemed like, you know, the walls just kind of melted away.

The four real people in the room were still there, but it was joined by just this like, I don't know how to describe, this host of spiritual people coming and going.

You know, it wasn't anybody identifiable.

You know, there wasn't anything distinguishable about these beings, but just this feeling of connectedness and belonging and being exactly where I was supposed to be and being welcomed back.

(light music) I feel connected to my friends and family again, to the people I meet on the street.

I feel like I belong.

And I can enjoy being in the moment for once, and you know, being present and not concerned about, you know, the pain or financial stress or another appointment coming up.

I can just be me and be here.

(soft music) Peace doesn't really do it justice.

Relief doesn't either.

It was a serenity.

(light music) - An important reminder.

This is not advocating individuals just do psychedelics.

The evidence of benefit is based on physician and researcher-led clinical trials where patients are first screened by mental health clinicians, because some people with preexisting issues could have negative outcomes after dosing with psilocybin.

Also, the specifically designed psychotherapy before and after the psychedelic experience is crucial for integrating the insights for lasting mental health benefit.

As for Wesley, in the month after he had his psychedelic experience, he unexpectedly lost his sister.

His cat also passed away.

Despite his enormous grief, he says the core of his psychedelic experience held and has kept him moving forward.

Toward that end, Wesley has applied and been accepted to a dual master's program for a master of divinity and a master of practical theology.

He says he hopes to help others one day as he has been helped.

And that is going to do it for us this week.

See you next time on "Your Fantastic Mind."

(light music) - [Announcer] "Your fantastic Mind," brought to you in part by Dennis Lockhart, in memory of Mary Rose Taylor, and by...