This Is Your Mind on Plants

De: Michael Pollan

Narrado por: Michael Pollan

Duración: 7 h y 37 m

Resumen del Editor

The instant New York Times best seller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of the Year

“Expert storytelling.... [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” (New York Times Book Review)

From number one New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants - and the equally powerful taboos.

Of all the things humans rely on plants for - sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber - surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime?

In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs - opium, caffeine, and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?

In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively - as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.

©2021 Michael Pollan (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Delightful...[This Is Your Mind on Plants] aims to collapse the distinctions between legal and illegal, medical and recreational, exotic and everyday, by appealing to the principle that unites the three: the affinities between plant biochemistry and the human mind.” (New York Review of Books)

“[A] thoughtful study.... As the U.S.’s drug policies become less punitive, [Pollan] argues, we should think more clearly about substances we’ve come to depend on.” (The New Yorker)

“[A] wonderful and compelling read that will leave you thinking long after you set it down.... Pollan is an astonishingly good writer, at times intimate and vulnerable, at times curious and expository, always compelling and credible. Reading his writing can be kind of like taking a psychedelic - a literary onomatopoeia.” (Washington Post)

he done did it again

Loved it with the last chapter ending on a personal note I especially appreciated. A beautiful journey

Interesting and easy listen

This was different from what I was expecting, but still super interesting history and effect of opium, caffeine, and peyote on humans. It definitely taught me some things I wasn’t aware of, and I enjoyed the open-minded perspective from an avid gardener.

Feels like a collection of essays.

Feels more like a collection of essayed rather than a standalone book. I've enjoyed the Caffeine original audio and it was perfect. Michael Pollan could have published just the mescaline in a short story format and it would have been more than enough. The narration was great as always, but this just my bias and overall preference for authors record their own book.

Michael Pollan’s love of plants is contagious

Great historical, sociological and biochemical account of how the opium, coffee and mescaline plants have come to be part and shape our world.

Excellent! Very informative and the storytelling is superb

I like how Pollan interweaves history, science, and facts with his personal experience to make this an engaging, illuminating, and inspiring story.

Wonderful and Fascinating Stories

What a wonderful book, and excellent narration. The author is very eloquent and ties in so much fascinating information about the science, history and cultural significance of these plants. Especially loved the peyote section.

Decriminalize Nature

Wonderfully narrated, and enlightening, this is yet another key title to read in the midst of the Great Pause, and reawakening of natures bond with humanity.

Another good one my Pollan

just like how to change your mind, Pollan put together another great read about the power of psychedelics and how people need ro be more open about exploring how the right drugs can have amazing affects on our mindsets and lives.

great read! (listen, actually!!)

i am not at all naturally interested in the power of altering once mind through illicit substances and this book wouldn't show up on my library if it wasn't for my bookclub. it was an eye opening, educational, exceptional well delivered experience! i am so glad I've read this book!!! i think the biggest take away is the spiritual, the understanding how closely we rely on nature. also, the realization of how much of the US history and culture has been lost due to colonialist expansionist practices is absolutely tragic. as we stand on a brim of environmental catastrophy, we seem to embrace the concept of "closer to nature," but i can't help the feeling that there's a great chasm between what we know and what we could've known had we not decimated an entire civilization of the Fist Nation of America.... something that Michael Pollan bushes upon in his account of his own decade long exploration and understanding of the relationship between plants and humankind.

Brilliance

Wonderful listen. I am so grateful that we’re on the right track with expanding our consciousness.