Episode · Huberman Lab · 2026-09-28
Books mentioned on What Humans, Animals and Plants Tell Us About Consciousness | Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is a renowned author, journalist and professor at UC Berkeley. He is best known for his influential works on how humans and plants have shaped each other at the level of food, medicine, health, and culture.
Michael Pollan discussed The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James and The doors of perception by Aldous Huxley.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience is a foundational exploration of human spirituality, religious sentiment, and psychological states of consciousness.
Discussed“In my case, I thought back to William James who had written in varieties of mystical experience that you can't really judge the veracity of a big insight on a mystical experience”
Where to get it
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The doors of perception
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is a classic philosophical essay chronicling the author's psychedelic experiences and exploring the nature of human consciousness.
Discussed“and Aldous Huxley believed this and talked about it indoors of perception that he had had some access to this field.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (9) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing The Omnivore's Dilemma
“the botany of desire, which is about how humans and plants coevolved and collaborated to thrive, and the omnivores dilemma, which is an incredible book about food and nutrition.”
Passing How to Change Your Mind
“My guest today is Michael Pollan, author of landmark books, including How to Change Your Mind, which is about psychedelics, the botany of desire”
Passing The Botany of Desire
“the botany of desire, which is about how humans and plants coevolved and collaborated to thrive, and the omnivores dilemma, which is an incredible book about food and nutrition.”
Passing A World Appears
“And most recently, the book A World Appears, A Journey Into Consciousness.”
Plugged Second Nature
“And he, you know, actually, when I was writing my first book, Second Nature, I was trying to figure out how to behave in the garden”
Plugged The Botany of Desire
“I wrote a book called botany desire, which really looked at how plants have mastered our desires as their, as their evolutionary strategy”
Plugged The Botany of Desire
“that's the subtitle of Botany desire was a plant's eye view of the world.”
Plugged How to Change Your Mind
“I remember how nervous I was when I published how to change your mind. I was talking about my own psychedelic experience.”
Plugged This Is Your Mind On Plants
“I subsequently put it in a book called This Is Your Mind on Plants, which came out a couple of years ago. And it's one of three chapters in that book.”