The Trip: 7. Fascination and taboo

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.

This episode looks into the history of psychedelic research. From the “dawn” of psychedelic science in 1799 through to prohibition in the second half of the last century, Tim explores shifting cultural and scientific approaches to substances that induce altered states. There had been a willingness to openly explore the trip experience and to see what might be discovered by doing so. Why did all that become taboo?

Contributors: Erika Dyck, historian of psychedelics, University of Saskatchewan Mike Jay, author and cultural historian Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, philosopher of mind and metaphysics, University of Exeter

Presenter: Tim Hayward Producer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones Editor: Kirsten Lass

Written by Tim Hayward and Richard Ward

Sound Design and Mixing: Richard Ward Production Executive Lisa Lipman Researcher: Grace Revill Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4