Summary of How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan by Dennis Braun

Summary of How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan Reviews

• 
  Michael

  This book might be a favorite! On top of being very informative, it just fills in so much space on how the mind works. It's got so much heart to it too. Just beautifully written.
• 
  EMMANUEL

  I honestly did like the book's cover title... but, when I started and finished the book. I was so confused with what I read.
  
  I understood the context. I am able to read. I am able to rationalize the concepts. But. What I didn't understand was what the author was sourcing his context in revolving focus. Meaning... I had no clue... absolutely no idea, in regards to what the author was generating his context to further make clear, compliment, and quite market in the intention to have the reader be of the same interest as the author.
  
  I realized that this book was very much written in a metaphorical interpretive way. I don't know if that was the intention, but that's how I was only able to make sense to a various amount of the book's context.
  
  The analogical and metaphorical applications to the concepts and context of the book's logical and insightful offerings, was very abstract. The context of the book, very much contradicts the marketing attraction in which the book's title attracts the customer of being interested in the book.
  
  The context contradicts the initial attractions "hook", meaning... why the customer would buy the book, and take the time to read, and basically, by reading... supporting the author as the author being a professional literaryist.
  
  I don't dislike the author. The insights were very applicable. But. I just didn't like how unclear the book's context was. I didn't like... at all, how contradicting the book's context was to the title. Just literally destroyed all my positive hopes in developing applicable and relatable insight to the title. The topic, in which the book was marketed of elaborating and further explaining to ensure a more grasped clarity of the connotations of the title of the book, "how to change your mind".
  
  The author does have very good skills in writing. I would advocate for him to further his literary career, and suggest him to really be more clear in his rationals. Rather than focusing on accounting for various contexts that allows for relatability from different perspective (multiple perspectives; different ways in which people perceive life). I suggest just to focus on how the author perceive's life, and account for the perception's logical context and rationales to the applications in which your knowledge is most inclined in default to rationalize the intellectual knowledge that is acquired and capable of being organized and identified. In whatever identifying context your knowledge is best organized in your rationalizing skills for your efforts of intellectualization.
• 
  Effy Feng

  Too many superfluous words!!! Author display stories but do not analyze anything. So it’s often some ppl at some place doing something. And then this is all becoz psycodelic drug, no root cause analyze, waste of time.
• 
  Ian Hamilton

  Mind-numbingly tedious...so much so that I no longer have the bandwidth to give this a more descriptive review.
• 
  Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett

  Give this 3.5 stars if you will.
  
  Much of what you think of this book is—as I learned within it regarding what affects LSD trips—based upon set and setting.
  
  That is, mind set going in, and the setting in which you read it (when it comes to psychedelics, the rule is mind set going into the trip and the setting in which you ingest to begin your journey).
  
  So here’s my set and setting vis a vis this book.
  
  For the first few chapters, I was RIVETED!!! Could it be that I need to eat some mushrooms as a HEALTHY part of my spiritual practice??? All the data and the new wave of experiments seem to indicate, given the appropriate set and setting, YES! And not just “need to,” SHOULD.
  
  This part of the book is fascinating and does well to dispel many fears and sociological biases toward psychedelics.
  
  But then I kept reading. And here’s where my “set” came in to derail my “trip.”
  
  Ultimately, Pollan describes the results of successful psychedelic use as a mystical destruction of ego and revealed truth in the unity of all mankind and matter. Love is the answer. This is GREAT.
  
  The problem—for ME—is that I already believe those things and my spiritual practice is founded upon them. I meditate daily. I do spiritual reading of the great mystics of all denominations.
  
  So for me, two issues kept me from totally LOVING this book.
  
  First, I find it difficult to believe (though I don’t think he’s lying, I just find it difficult to believe) that Pollan has had little to no exposure to Eastern religion or philosophy. He says repeatedly that he’s a science guy. That he’s looked askance at the spiritual for as long as he can remember. Okay. I’m a science guy too, but in the course of a curious life, I’ve discovered that the mystical traditions of almost every denomination/people I can think of say nearly exactly the same things. The world shattering insights that Pollan claims psychedelics deliver are written on the pages of every intro to Buddhism or Hinduism or Taoism book.
  
  If you’re wrapped up in the beliefs of your own particular faith, believe me. You can see for yourself. I’d imagine that you can Google “similarities in religious mysticism” and get some pretty good evidence. But Pollan didn’t even need to do THAT. He mentions, repeatedly, William James’s classic, The Variety of Religious Experiences. In it, James describes the shared elements of mystical experience ACROSS DIFFERENT BELIEF SYSTEMS.
  
  So, that said, the book came down to this:
  
  I am SURE, beyond 100% certainty, that the psychedelic experience I could FEEL would be more intense and beautiful than the feelings I’m able to access in my meditation and other practices. BUT, it sounds to me, having finished the book, that this experience would be one of degree, not difference. But, I ask myself, who cares? That’s STILL a worthwhile experience! Yes, but second, Pollan admits that he and others have had trouble, after their trip, putting the beautiful unity and ego-nullification into some sort of PRACTICE. Hmmmm. That brings me back to where I am NOW. The way to do that is meditate etc. etc.
  
  OR keep taking psychedelics.
  
  As I’m not interested in engaging in the latter (Pollan admits that a bad trip is almost INEVITABLE), the risks outweigh the one time appeal for me. Especially since, as I said, the CONCLUSION to be drawn from these trips is one I already share. Obviously, as I said, my level of FEELING those beliefs, I’m sure, is dwarfed by the psychedelic experience, by how much, I won’t know unless I partake. Not something that this book has convinced me to do.
  
  All of that said——-if you DO NOT share my set and setting going into this book, you will be dazzled and confused and certainly curious about trying psychedelics. And I’m not ruling out such an experience for my LIFETIME.
  
  Right now, however, doing the hard work every single day of trying to be present and mindful, the trip Pollan describes sounds to me—rightly or wrongly—like cheating that doesn’t deliver the long term benefits it promises.
• 
  Michele Roohani

  I know this book thanks to Paul Stamet, the famous mycologist. I got interested in psychedelics once I learned about the benefits they may have. I loved listening to the Pollan book so after I finished, I bought both the e-book and the paper version! The book gave me hope for finally having something that can stop the anxiety of people with terminal illnesses, people with deep depression and many other ailments of today's world.
  
  
  https://newatlas.com/science/psilocyb...
  
  
• 
  Alex Sharron

  An amazing book about the research of Psychedelics and mental health. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in the questions of what consciousness is and how these drugs will benefit humanity in exploring it.
• 
  Megan Opava

  I loved this book! I received a bachelors of science in Neuroscience Psychology so books about these topics often fall short for me. Not this one. I couldn’t put it down. I loved every second of it. It’s educational, entertaining, and inspiring!
• 
  Lindsay Hills

  Such a fascinating read. Definitely worth a read especially for all you spiritual not religious folk but maybe even. More for the religious and spiritual folk.
• 
  Nishelle D’souza

  DNF at 25%. Was intrigued by the title and what it promised but got bored pretty quickly. I like the case he made for the benefits of psychedelics but the history made me lose interest
• 
  Adrià Falcó

  Mindblowing book, the power of psychedelics explained at its best.
• 
  Patrice

  Life changing. Especially if you're middle aged, suffer from anxiety, depression or PTSD.