Bryan Johnson on mind and psychedelics
Bryan Johnson describes his own experience with psilocybin and 5-MeO-DMT as a reset of a mind that narrows with age, which he links to a quiet-then-rigid default mode network, and says it felt more transformative to him than his other longevity practices. He is wary of his own perception and of losing a youthful, open disposition, and ties his earlier depression to circumstances such as religion and a bad relationship. He argues psychedelics need rigor and a safety structure rather than unquantified, unsupervised use. These are his reported experiences and views, not medical advice.
15 points · 2 appearances · 2025–2026
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2023–2026 · changed view
“The observation is that don't die is the most played game by everyone all over the world every day. You and I breathe every few seconds, we look both ways before we cross the street, we all play don't die. So it's played more than capitalism, it's played more than any religion. It's the most played game in the world.”
2023–2026 · changed view
“And even now, if you give five anti-aging experts the same scientific papers and ask them to develop a protocol for you, you'll get a different protocol from every single one. They're not going to agree. There's no way to go out there and get consensus in the world, so you need to pick a path and then measure. And I've done exactly that. So I've basically tried to punch through all the noise and say, is there actually something I can do which has some believability? That's what I've done. So I've published all my data, and so Blueprint provides people a starter, a starting point, to say I'm going to do something that I can see works, I'm going to measure myself, then iterate and improve upon it. So health and wellness is all like a religion, where the King James version the Bible supports 100 different denominations. They all say their god's one and true only. Same with health and wellness: everyone claims they're God's true health and wellness program. And I've tried to punch the whole thing to say it doesn't matter what guru status is, share the data.”
2023–2026 · changed view
“I do think that humanity is at this critical juncture. Like we could be evolving to something spectacular. We could also get ourselves into a mess in so many ways. And I see the situation for what it is. And it's hard for me to spend time on anything other than that. But that's not where people's minds are at. People want to put on muscle and they want to lose weight and they want to not feel anxious and they want to not be depressed and they want to make more money at their job and they want more status in life and they want a partner in life. These basic things that humans want.”
2023–2026 · changed view
“Yeah, yeah, sleep is the most powerful drug that anyone can take. The next is probably exercise, and the next is diet. Those three things in order.”