This episode is designed for educational and artistic purposes only, to inform mature audiences. It explores ideas related to various substances and must not be interpreted as promoting illegal use or activities. Viewers and readers are responsible for knowing and complying with local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, substance use, or addiction, please seek help from a qualified healthcare professional or contact a local support service.

Somewhere in the quiet shade of the forest, a mushroom pushes through soil.Inside it, a molecule waits.Psilocybin.

Across continents and centuries, humans have found this compound and given it names: food of the gods, flesh of the gods, teonanácatl. Today, science calls it psilocybin: a tryptamine, close cousin to serotonin, and one of the most studied psychedelic molecules on Earth.

But what is psilocybin, really? A chemical formula on a lab sheet? A key that opens neural doors? A sacred presence woven into ritual?

🔎 In this episode, we explore:

* The basic chemistry of psilocybin and its conversion into psilocin

* Why its structure mirrors serotonin, and what that means for the brain

* How Indigenous cultures understood and revered it long before pharmacology

* What modern science has discovered about its effects on mood, perception, and neuroplasticity

* Why a single molecule can ripple into myth, medicine, and meaning

Psilocybin is more than a drug.It is a bridge — between chemistry and culture, brain and spirit, science and story.

This episode is designed for educational and artistic purposes only, to inform mature audiences. It explores ideas related to various substances and must not be interpreted as promoting illegal use or activities. Viewers and readers are responsible for knowing and complying with local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, substance use, or addiction, please seek help from a qualified healthcare professional or contact a local support service.

Why does a handful of molecules so tiny, almost weightless have the power to unravel reality?

What we call a trip is not a single thing. It’s the interplay of chemistry, context, and consciousness. Molecules like psilocybin, LSD, or DMT interact with brain networks that shape identity and perception. But the outcome whether it be awe, terror, healing, insight depends on far more than receptors alone.

🔎 In this episode, we explore:

* The neurochemical spark: how psychedelics activate and destabilize the Default Mode Network

* The role of serotonin and dopamine in shaping perception, meaning, and intensity

* Why “set and setting” matter as much as molecular action

* How the brain weaves symbols and stories into raw sensory floods

* Why some experiences feel divine, while others feel disorienting

A trip is not just brain chemistry.It is brain chemistry meeting the mind’s vast architecture of memory, culture, and myth.

And in that encounter, the ordinary self loosens and something other emerges.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

Psychedelics don’t invent new worlds.They rearrange the tuning.And the key they use is serotonin.

In this episode, we follow the thread from simple biology to altered states of mind. Serotonin receptors, especially the mysterious 5-HT2A, act as gateways, not just for mood, but for the patterns that structure thought and self. When psychedelics enter the picture, these gateways open wider than usual, letting the current of consciousness flow in unexpected directions.

🔎 In this episode, we explore:

* How psychedelics mimic serotonin yet bend it toward visionary states

* The role of the 5-HT2A receptor as a portal of perception

* Why “disruption” of normal brain networks can feel like both chaos and revelation

* How dopamine’s reward and motivation circuits intersect with psychedelic states

* How ancient rituals intuited these effects long before neuroscience named them

Serotonin is the tuning fork.Psychedelics strike it with a different hand.And the resonance is what we call the psychedelic experience.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

We’ve all heard the story.Serotonin: the “happiness chemical.”Too little, and you’re depressed.Boost it, and you’re back to normal.

It’s a neat narrative. Comforting.But like most comforting stories, it’s incomplete.

In this episode, we explore serotonin not as a single note of happiness, but as the tuning fork of the brain. A molecule that doesn’t just adjust volume: it sets rhythm, balance, and resonance.

Far from being about “mood” alone, serotonin touches almost everything: sleep, appetite, memory, social bonds, even the fragile architecture of the ego itself. And the most surprising part? Over 90% of it isn’t even in your brain.

🔎 In this episode, we cover:

* Why serotonin is more than the “happiness chemical”

* How it shapes perception, rhythm, and sense of self

* The gut–brain connection and where most serotonin is really found

* Why this molecule is central to both everyday experience and psychedelic journeys

Serotonin isn’t just a switch for happiness. It’s a hidden system of tuning, weaving context into consciousness.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

In Episode 8, we take a step back, way back.

Before the receptors.Before the psychedelics.Before the mind was even a scientific question.

We trace the long arc from ancient alchemy to modern neurochemistry, and ask:How did manipulating matter lead us to question the mind?

This episode travels through:

⚗️ The esoteric roots of chemistry: from transformation to transmutation🔬 The rise of laboratory science: and the industrial economy that fueled it🧠 The birth of neurochemistry as a serious science of the soul📉 The impact of war, profit, and pharmacology on how we study consciousness🌍 And how spiritual inquiry was rebranded as scientific “objectivity”

What emerges is not a clean timeline, but a pattern.A poetic throughline, where the search for gold became the search for serotonin.Where philosopher-scientists became drug developers.And where the lab became a new kind of altar.

If we want to understand the modern psychedelic renaissance, we have to understand how we got here, chemically, culturally, and economically.

This episode sets the stage for everything to come, especially as we begin to explore how psychedelics helped force science to look inward again.

As always, thank you for listening, reading, and wondering alongside me.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

Posted for all subscribers. Full script and bibliography available to paid supporters.

In this episode, we turn inward: from the molecules themselves to the maps they follow.

We begin with a simple question:How does a puff of smoke or a drop of DMT produce a shift in mood, memory, or meaning?

The answer, almost always, begins with the receptor.

This episode traces:

🧠 How the discovery of receptors transformed neuroscience🌀 Why "locks and keys" are more poetic and powerful than they sound📡 How psychedelic substances interact with specific neural circuits🧬 The brain’s natural “listening stations” and what they’re tuned to hear🕸️ What the receptor model reveals about connection, perception, and even selfhood

We explore how chemicals don’t force effects on the brain, they participate in a dialogue. A whisper into a system already wired for meaning.

To feel anything is to be in relationship.And to alter that feeling is to shift the pattern of connection between molecules, between neurons, between worlds.

As always, this project is ad-free, independently made, and crafted for those who believe that the mind is more than matter, and that matter might just be meaning in disguise.

Thanks for being here.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

In Episode 6, we go deeper into cannabis, not as a single drug, but as an ecosystem of molecules.

We explore the nuanced chemistry behind the entourage effect. How cannabinoids like THC & CBD interact with aromatic terpenes like limonene and myrcene to shape mood, memory, and perception. It's not just what’s in the plant, it’s how the molecules communicate.

Because cannabis isn’t one voice.It’s a chorus.And the body doesn’t just receive it passively: it listens, filters, and responds.

This episode covers:

🌿 The major cannabinoids and what they do (scientifically, not sensationally)🎺 Why whole-plant medicine feels different than isolates🌱 How terpenes function like emotional context, not just scent🧬 The biological logic of synergy and polypharmacology in action⚖️ And why effects are relational, not linear

We also reflect on what it means to listen to the plant not just biochemically, but culturally.

🔓 Paid subscribers get the full episode script + citations + notes.

As always, Green Gage’s is ad-free, algorithm-free, and built for people who believe consciousness deserves careful language.

Thanks for listening, reading, and thinking with me.

This episode is for educational purposes only. It is intended for mature audiences and explores scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives on psychoactive substances. Nothing in this content should be interpreted as medical advice or encouragement for illegal activity. Viewers are responsible for knowing and following their local laws. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, please seek support from a qualified healthcare provider.

THC and anandamide. One from the plant. One from the brain. Both speak the same chemical language.

In this episode, we take a closer look at two molecular messengers: THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, and anandamide, its naturally occurring counterpart in the human brain.

What do these two molecules reveal about memory, motivation, and mood? And what happens when balance between them is lost?

We explore how both compounds interact with the endocannabinoid system, not to override it, but to tune it. And in doing so, we trace the fine line between euphoria and dysregulation, between enhancement and escape.

In this episode, we cover:• How THC and anandamide compare structurally and functionally• Why cannabis feels so familiar to the brain• The role of anandamide in stress recovery, memory, and pleasure• How THC mimics, amplifies, and sometimes disrupts the ECS• The science of balance and what long-term cannabis use may do to it• A reframe of cannabis: not just a substance, but a signal

This episode lays the groundwork for understanding cannabis not as a single effect, but as a spectrum and how context, chemistry, and internal state all shape the outcome.

Green Gage’s is a 44-part exploration of consciousness through the lens of chemistry, neuroscience, and poetic insight.

🔎 Keywords: THC vs anandamide, cannabis science, endocannabinoid system, how THC works, natural cannabinoids, cannabis and memory, neurochemistry podcast, ECS modulation, Green Gage’s, psychoactive balance, cannabinoid receptors

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