The Center for MINDS

🚀 Can psychedelics unlock creativity? We’re launching a groundbreaking study at @UTAustin, backed by @Ways2Well to find out.⁠ 👇

Read the full conversation here: psychedelicalpha.com/news/center-fo… Have your own practices for catalyzing creative breakthroughs? We want to hear from you → centerforminds.org

"We're leaving all this genius on the table. And it isn't necessarily that psychedelics are the only tools we can use to unlock it, but it's the broader focus on cultivating and nurturing that next generation coming up who carry these capacities."

Our co-founder @bdamer sat down with @PsychedelicAlph to talk about the abandoned science of psychedelic-catalyzed creativity and what MINDS is doing to pick it back up. psychedelicalpha.com/news/center-fo…

Philosopher-Builder Reading List: Winter 2025/26 12 of the sharpest minds in our network give their recs and reflections ↓

Creative insight sits at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness research.⁠ ⁠ Through our first study, Mind FLUX at UT Austin, and our forthcoming white paper, MINDS is helping build a framework for studying how insight emerges and how it can be supported by specific states of mind.⁠

Intelligence is over rated. Humanity’s next breakthroughs will depend on wiser cognition the ability to perceive connections across domains, dissolve rigid patterns, and reimagine the possible.

The psychedelic state might be best understood not as a source of instant genius, but as a laboratory for studying the dynamics of insight — a test case for the science of creativity itself.

Creativity and insight are not luxuries of the arts or sciences — they are the engines of human adaptability, essential for navigating the complex crises of our era.

At MINDS, Dr. Barsulgia will help shape our mission to catalyze breakthrough insights that are scientifically sound, creatively inspired, and deeply aligned with nature and wisdom traditions. Welcome aboard, Joseph — we’re honored to walk this path together. 🙏 #CenterForMINDS #PsychedelicResearch #Iboga #CreativityAndConsciousness #5MeODMT

“As a therapist, researcher, and initiate of ancient medicine traditions, I’ve witnessed leaders unlock holistic creativity, driving systemic impacts through transcendent awareness. MINDS’ innovative team is poised to unite psychedelic science with ancient-future wisdom to spark transformative insights.” @barsuglia_dr

We’re honored to welcome Dr. Joseph Barsulgia (@barsuglia_dr) to the MINDS Advisory Board. A clinical psychologist trained at UCLA, USC, and the VA, Dr. Barsulgia is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts in iboga, ibogaine, and 5-MeO-DMT. 🌍🧠

Psychedelics, meditation, mentorship, AI, breathwork—tools across time and tech may converge on one goal: catalyzing insight. That’s the science we’re building at MINDS.

Fascinating developments and psychedelic science! What do you make of this?

We left inspired by the reminder that we are stardust... carriers of a 13.8B-year story of survival & creativity. ✨ If life itself emerged through community & collaboration, so too must our solutions to the challenges of today.

Across 6 hours of talks, one theme rang clear: life is collaboration. Born of trial & error, shaped by chaos, yet propelled by a force that seems to want life to exist. As @bdamer shared with @ThouArtThat : “Death wrote the code of life.”

Last week in Aspen, we joined an extraordinary gathering of scientists, philosophers & visionaries at Frontiers of Knowledge 2025, exploring everything from the origins of life to the future of consciousness. 🌌