This two-part talk – which my teacher Shinzen Young gave on November 29th, 2010, at the University of Toronto – is a good introduction to Shinzen’s rigorous approach to mindfulness. Call it Mindfulness 2.0. Includes a frank discussion of Shinzen’s own no-self experiences and some interesting speculation about science and the future of Enlightenment. Includes the text of my introduction.

Jennifer Dumpert teaches a course on dreaming at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. She uses Head Trip as a text book. Here’s a short video interview I did for her class, talking all about Aristotle and houses on wheels and “memory catching” Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

Fun talk with writer and all-purpose rogue scholar Erik Davis, including riffs on hypnagogia, lucid dreaming, scientific vs spiritual knowledge, the role of science journalists in describing the nature of reality, how ocean may shape mind, psychedelics and more.

“I really believe we’re at are at the dawn of a new age of scientific exploration. The external world is mapped; now the explorers are turning inward. The galleons have left port. They’re approaching a huge mysterious continent. They won’t be the first to arrive. There are paths already cut in the forest, where shamans and monks and others have set up outposts and launched their own expeditions into the interior…”

My friend science journalist Sonya Buyting conducted this interview. I spiel more than usual on account of Sonya’s open disposition. Good overview of Head Trip and a few lurid extrapolations.

“Most people fly around looking for opportunities to have sex. I usually strike out in that regard, in fact my dream characters almost universally ignore me. Perhaps this is because I am disappointingly uncoordinated in my lucid dreams; I walk like a drunk, crashing into hedges and buildings, and when I try to fly I seize up like a voodoo doll, flip onto my back, and summersault helplessly while all around dream forces hum with oblique intent. Thus I have democratized the state for losers everywhere…”