When Words Aren't Enough: Story, Flow & Altered States
Whose story are you living, and how do you find your way back to your own?
Brian Stanton is a stage actor based in Los Angeles with an MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts. He is most known for his award-winning original solo play BLANK and his award-winning film @ghostkingdom, both personal pieces exploring the complicated and emotional truths of his adoption experience. He also holds a Certificate for Psychedelic-Informed Practice, Harm Reduction and Integration from Psychedelics Today's Vital Education Program. That's how we met. We were both in the Vital cohort, and he was my second ever guest on Enhanced Senses.
In this episode, he turns the mic around and interviews me.
A year after I interviewed Brian about how we use story as a container for identity, he interviews me about what happens when that container gets murky, when someone else's version of events becomes the one that sticks, and about the DMT experience that told me you can't separate experience from story even if you try.
I'm releasing this in a week where I lost one of my closest friends, Renee. She was there at the beginning of this podcast's name. She hiked the first eight miles of the Timberline Trail with me before we turned around. She's woven into the origin of Enhanced Senses in ways I'm still finding. This one is for her.
In this conversation we get into:
- What happens in your body when fear shows up before a rapid, a record button, or a drop in
- Why the container shapes the experience in kayaking, in psychedelics, in podcasting, in all three at once
- The difference between moving through fear and getting stuck in it
- What a 10-second "of course" video has to do with 60-minute podcast episodes
- Two acid trips with the same murky group dynamic and what the common denominator turned out to be
- The DMT waiting room and what the scene that followed told me about story and experience
- What ketamine makes ineffable and why that might be pointing at something important
- Why IFS threads into how I understand both psychedelic experiences and extreme sports
- Flow as an altered state of consciousness, what it shares with psychedelics and what stays different
- Training Moxie and what co-regulation has to do with trusting your skills in the moment
Story is not the cage. It's the container. It's how humans translate energetic experience into something shareable. The DMT experience didn't tell me to let go of story. It told me that experience is story, and that if you want to feel things, you have to be okay with the narrative that unfolds.
Connect with Brian Stanton:
Psychetheatrics — website [https://www.psychetheatrics.com/?utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPOTM2NjE5NzQzMzkyNDU5AAGnSxB8phn59t9eDIkR2WaeMjoY8xzsqYG4tVzLnKaNIHHeXedYmw4LOJKAOLM_aem_xAnM-U6UJ3kSiW7S8ziv0w] and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/psychetheatrics/]
Brian's Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thebrianstanton/]
If this conversation stirred something:
If you've ever had an experience where someone else's version of events became the one that stuck, I'd love to hear from you. Find me on Instagram at @enhanced_senses_podcast or at enhanced-senses.com.
I'm also building more ways to apply my interviewing and story curation skills to help others find their voice, in podcasting, on social media, or wherever your story is trying to come through. Reach out if any of that is calling to you.
The Six Dynamics are the framework underneath everything I do on Enhanced Senses. This conversation lives inside Portals, Process, and Definitions. If you want a map for how your own experiences fit together, start there [https://tr.ee/9VOzpUjHaU].
Enhanced Senses Podcast explores what it feels like to be you, through extreme sports, altered states, creativity, and the conversations that make you feel less alone in your experience. New episodes wherever you listen.
