Chris: Hello and welcome to Just One Question from Insights at the Edge. I’m Chris Rock.
Mallory: And I’m Mallory Corbin. We’re producers at the Sounds True Podcast Network. We work with Tami on Insights at the Edge to bring you transformational ideas from teachers around the world.
Chris: And every week on this show, we pull out some of the most inspiring, most transformational ideas from those hundreds of conversations, and we bring them to you in the form of one question and one answer.
Mallory: Thus the name, Just One Question.
Chris: We hope you’ll enjoy.
Mallory: This week I wanted to share a moment from a conversation in 2023 with Matt Gutman, who is an award-winning journalist who has worked as a chief correspondent for both CBS and ABC News. He spent over 15 years reporting on major global and domestic events. So, someone who is used to speaking to the masses and working under immense pressure.
Chris: That’s a lot of pressure. So what brought him to Insights?
Mallory: Well, he actually came on to talk about his personal story of having panic attacks and a panic disorder. He speaks about how he was having recurring panic attacks on air.
Chris: Whoa. Okay.
Mallory: Yeah. Pretty intense. So he had just published a book in 2023 called No Time to Panic. It was basically an investigation into panic attacks and panic disorders and different treatments and remedies and stuff like that. And eventually, his explorations basically took him into the world of psychedelics.
Chris: Oh, okay.
Mallory: As many searching for therapies end up doing.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Mallory: So with the help of — and I want to emphasize, legally — with the help of professionals, he embarked on a series of therapeutic experiences with DMT and ketamine.
Chris: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to hear his story. We’ve heard a lot from Sounds True authors around the idea of psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted therapies.
Mallory: Yeah. He talks about having an ego death and screaming out trapped pain, and how these encounters actually shifted his understanding of trauma and deepened his empathy for others who have also suffered.
Chris: Hmm. So here are Tami and Matt exploring the question: Could psychedelics cure my panic disorder?
Mallory: Stay with us.
Tami Simon: Now, it sounds like entering altered states through the use of psychedelics was the area that was the most profound for you, that created the most change and transformation. There are a lot of different psychedelics. You mentioned a bunch. Tell us a little bit about which experiences impacted you the most, particularly in terms of panic attacks.
Matt Gutman: You know, when I rattled off all the psychedelics I did, I had a momentary fear that people would think that I’m Hunter S. Thompson, you know, going on a bender in Las Vegas with this convertible Chevy Caprice. But my mode of transportation to these altered states was typically a couch or a bed. I did it always with practitioners or guides who were professionals, or actual psychiatrists and psychologists by my side. So it was very thought out, and sometimes expensive. But I wanted to do it right. I did not want this to be a lark. This was not something that I did for fun or recreation. This was medicinal.
All of them were great. I would say — I’ll describe my experience with 5-MeO-DMT. This is the secretions of a Sonoran Desert toad. It’s basically a powder that you smoke. I did this in Peru, and it’s a short-acting medicine that catapults you beyond. I had a brief experience with sort of ego death. I sort of died, didn’t know where I was, completely, like, gone. And then I came back from that state and I was on a mat in this room in Peru, in the Sacred Valley, it’s called, which is near Machu Picchu. And I came back screaming like a newborn into the world. Literally flopping off the mat onto the floor, immediately sweating and hyperventilating.
But Tami, I had this — I don’t even know how to describe it. It was so profound. It was screaming. I shouted. I emptied my lungs of this pain that had been there, that I don’t even know was so intense, and I allowed myself to scream. I felt compelled to do it in a way I’ve not felt compelled to do anything in my life. This was not voluntary. It was as if, you know, these demons were inside my lungs and they were starting to fly out. It was like a reverse exorcism. Whatever that was.
And I basically screamed and cried and shouted and, you know, tore at my hair and my face, and just did this a lot for about 35 minutes. And the other members of this retreat — and most people do it in silence, but of course I’ve got to do it theatrically — and so my fellow retreat members, who were massively supportive and awesome, when it was over just gave out this huge cheer, because they could tell that I’d had this seminal moment in my life of something, of getting this out, of crying in a way that I’d never done before. It was massively profound, and I will never, ever forget it, and I will always be grateful for that experience and the practitioner, Gloria, who helped me with it.
Anyway, so that’s, like, one type of experience. Ketamine was also very profound. I experienced ego death. I think everybody needs to find, or to harness, their strengths to find their path to wellness, right? And mine is being very intensely into something, to throw myself into the deep end. That’s the way I’ve reported, and that’s the way I reported this book. Right? Okay, I have a problem, I’m now going to address it, and I’m going to address it in the most absolutely intense way that I can, because that’s what I know how to do.
But you can’t do that forever. And so the wellness work is about maintenance. It’s about still going to the breathwork class. It’s about doing psilocybin once in a while, taking a journey. It’s about really practicing meditation and mindfulness. And so — my parents took me to do Transcendental Meditation when I was 12, so I’ve had that in the back of my head for many years. I have this practice that I do. I’m much more able to be mindful.
And one of the things about psychedelics, just to go back to it for a sec: the beautiful message that you can receive from them is more easily accessed during meditation. So I find that my meditation helps me access this treasure trove of images — images that give me strength from my last ketamine experience. I found myself, my avatar, flying over — I guess it was sort of the Amazon rainforest, and I’ve been to the Amazon, I think, five, six times — and so these vivid memories. But anyway, so I’m flying over it and I’m just surveying the land below, and it’s lush and rich, and the green is so vibrant.
I end up flying up to this very high clifftop, again surveying all that’s below, and it’s gorgeous, and I feel whole. And then for some reason, my avatar decides to take a nosedive into the earth, just careening face first into the ground. Not flapping, not flying, just crashing. But the earth, the rainforest, rises up to meet me and catches me. And I love that imagery. It’s like the ultimate trust fall, right? That I took this nosedive and the earth met me.
And it sounds very woo-woo, but I felt comforted by it. Like it was the sense of — what did we say? — the okayness. That was the okayness, Tami. I mean, I just connected the two things, but yes, like, I can access it. It’s not always there, but I can find it, and it’s okay. You’re gonna be caught. You’re gonna be safe. It’s gonna be all right.
Chris: This has been Just One Question. You can find Tami’s full interview with Matt called “Conquering a Lifetime of Panic Attacks,” anywhere you find podcasts and Insights at the Edge or at soundstrue.com and we’ll put a link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
Tami Simon: The Sounds True Podcast Network.
