The Trip: 1. Altered States

During the early weeks of the pandemic, Tim Hayward spent 14 days in a coma. He remembers this time vividly – his days and nights filled with strange, incandescent visions and hallucinations. That experience is something he would never choose to revisit but, around the world, large numbers of people are deliberately seeking out powerfully altered states.

In this ten-part series, Tim sets out to better understand a group of substances that induce altered states: psychedelics.

There’s been a surge of interest in their therapeutic potential for various mental health conditions - as well as a range of other clinical possibilities. As research around the world ramps up after years of taboo and prohibition he tries to get to grips with - or at least get a clearer sense of - how science, culture, politics and business might all interact in this changing psychedelic landscape, and what it all might mean.

He also explores what might be happening in the brain during a trip and whether, by studying psychedelics, we might uncover more about consciousness, imagination and even the mysteries of reality itself.

In this first episode he discovers where psychedelics come from, gets terrified about ergot poisoning, and hears from a scientist at the forefront of clinical research looking at psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for treatment resistant depression.

Contributors: Lucie Berkovitch, psychiatrist and neuroscientist, GHU Paris Psychiatrie et Neurosciences Erika Dyck, historian of psychedelics, University of Saskatchewan Mike Jay, author and cultural historian David Luke, psychologist and psychedelic researcher, University of Greenwich

Presenter: Tim Hayward Series Producer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones Editor: Kirsten Lass Written by Tim Hayward and Richard Ward Sound Design and Mixing: Richard Ward Researcher: Grace Revill Voiceover Artist: Sandra-Mae Lux Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4