HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND - Summarized for Busy People: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence: Based on the Book by Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan wanted to research LSD and psilocybin and how it could provide relief to people suffering from conditions that are difficult to treat such as depression, addiction, and anxiety. This didn’t intend to be his most personal book but, because of how these substances could improve the lives even of the people with mental health problems, Pollan began to explore the landscape of the mind from his own experience.

This began an adventure into the altered states of consciousness backed by the latest research on the brain and an underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan switched from historical records in order to separate the myth from the truth that have been around since the 1960s—which set a backlash against psychedelic evangelists from the originally promising field of research.

A perfect blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind serves as a participatory journalism that gives a gripping account of the world of understanding the mind, the self, and our place in the world. Pollan’s “mental travelogue” not only looks into psychedelic drugs but also the puzzle of the human consciousness and how it could set us in suffering and in joy—while doing our best of find the meaning in our lives.