Using Meditation to Focus, View Consciousness & Expand Your Mind | Dr. Sam Harris

My guest is Sam Harris, Ph.D. Sam earned his bachelor’s degree in
philosophy from Stanford University and his doctorate (Ph.D.) in
neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
He is the author of multiple best-selling books and is a
world-renowned public-facing intellectual on meditation,
consciousness, free will, psychedelics and neuroscience. He is also
the creator of Waking Up and the host of the "Making Sense"
podcast. In this episode, we discuss meditation as a route to
understanding “the self” and experiencing consciousness, not just
changing one’s conscious state. Sam describes several meditation
techniques and their benefits, including how meditation
fundamentally changes our worldview and how it can be merged
seamlessly into daily life. It can help us overcome universal
challenges such as distractibility and persistent, internal
dialogue (“chatter”) to allow for deep contentment and pervasive
shifts in our awareness, all while acknowledging the more immediate
stress-lowering and memory-improving effects of meditation. We also
discuss the therapeutic use of psychedelics and the mechanistic
similarities between the benefits of a psychedelic journey and
long-term meditation practices. And we discuss the rationale behind
Sam’s recent decision to close his social media (Twitter) account.
This episode should interest anyone wanting to learn more about the
higher order functions of the brain, the brain-body connection,
consciousness and, of course, meditation and why and how to
meditate for maximum benefit. For the full show notes, visit
hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1:
https://athleticgreens.com/huberman LMNT:
https://drinklmnt.com/hubermanlab Waking Up:
https://wakingup.com/huberman Momentous:
https://livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Dr. Sam
Harris  (00:04:54) Sponsor: LMNT (00:08:54) Sense of Self
& Meditation, Dualism of Self (00:18:07) Sense of Self in Brain
& Body  (00:25:28) Consciousness vs. Contents, Meditation
(00:28:25) Interrupting Sense of Self & Attentional Focus,
Visual Saccade  (00:33:30) Observer & Actor, Default Mode
Network & Meditation, Blind Spot (00:36:52) Sponsor: AG1
(00:41:57) Mediation & Paths to Understanding Consciousness,
Non-Dualistic Experience (00:57:32) Sense of Self throughout
Evolution  (01:07:40) Sense of Self from Human Development,
Language (01:19:46) Internal Dialogue, Distractibility &
Mindfulness  (01:26:27) Time Perception & Mindfulness,
Vipassana Meditation, Resistance & Pain (01:37:13)
Consciousness & Sense of Control, Free Will (01:43:14)
Authoring Thoughts: Storytelling & Ideas, Free Will (01:52:11)
Meditation & the Paradoxical Search for Self (02:06:44)
Meditation & Concentration Practice  (02:11:58)
Mindfulness, “Skylike Mind” & Thoughts (02:15:11) States of
Self & Context, Dualistic Experiences (02:32:39) Distraction
& Identification of Thoughts, Meditation & “Flow” States
(02:42:58) Eyes-Open Meditations, Sense of Self, Visual Cues &
Social Interactions (02:54:59) Paths to Meditation, Mindfulness
Meditation Step-Functions (03:05:58) Psychedelics, MDMA &
Experiences in Consciousness, Religion (03:21:11) Meditation,
Psychedelic Journeys & Inner Truths (03:29:48) Psilocybin,
Ego-Dissolution & Thought Expansion (03:40:09) Process vs.
Achievement of Goals, Fulfillment in Present (03:54:29) Leaving
Twitter; Conflict, Life Interruption & Politics 
(04:06:14) Social Media, Attentional Disruption & Deep Work
(04:15:39) Meditation & Sense of Self (04:19:02) Sam Harris
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