The wonders of psychedelics—the what-ifs, the how-tos, the why-nots—were on hand on three main stages at Miami’s Ice Palace Film Studios at the 2023 Wonderland Conference, November 9-11, featuring over 250 speakers, 60 exhibitors, and approximately 5,000 attendees.
The conference this year focused more on the fascinating applications of psychedelics either planned or in the works, rather than looking at the markers of a maturing industry, which was the theme of the 2022 Wonderland conference presentations.
This third Wonderland represented an energetic deep dive into how psychedelics function to benefit human health and wellness; the role of AI in the study of psychedelics; and how psychedelics help create a positive body/soul consciousness that can be part of personal transformation.
Extending life through psychedelics, and what that could mean for the future of humanity, was the subject of many discussions during the conference. There were 24 sessions about longevity spread out over a total of 134 Wonderland sessions.
But if there was a theme for the conference, it was the amazing tech-derived discoveries about psychedelics.
Psychedelics may be able to heal hate, as explained by Rabbi Harry Rozenberg, co-founder of Trippy VC, in one of the more audience-hushing presentations.
In another fascinating presentation, Scotch McClure, CEO and chairman of Maxwell Biosciences, talked about how microbes are psychedelics working within the microbiome, and that 95% of a body’s serotonin comes from the microbiome. “It can change the way someone views the outside world,” he said.
He also talked about wellness research that could rid the body of viruses, and enable humans to live well beyond 125 years.
“The human body is really about designed obsolescence,” McClure said. “If you can wash out the system good enough, then you should be able to extend the lifespan. So let’s wash it and put it in the dishwasher and see if we can get some of the pathogens out and continue to use it.”
Dillan DiNardo, CEO of Mindstate Design Labs, explained how his work in building a large language database from reports by psychonauts about their personal trip experiences is being used in an AI model to help quantify the psychedelic experience, and dissect all the components of the biology of consciousness.
His company is designing new psychedelic drugs using that technology. “So if you look at how DMT interacts with the brain, it’s very different from how LSD interacts with the brain, and that’s very different from how ibogaine interacts with the brain,” he said. “So what all of these technologies allow us to do is draw a chain from subjective experience to the drug to the pharmacology of the drug to the receptor.”
There were practical business operations sessions as well during Wonderland.
Psychedelics has returned to its economic boom positioning after a short crash, in part because of the coming rollout out of FDA-approved MDMA treatment for PTSD, according to a psychedelic investment session.
Sisi Lee, the senior data architect for Porta Sophia, talked about the difficulty of finding evidence of prior art for psychedelics patents, and how companies are getting caught up in overly broad patenting schemes without doing the required due diligence.
But a key observation about longevity came from Bryan Johnson, CEO of Kernel and wearing a shirt that read “Don’t Die,” who said that he now ages slower than 97 percent of 36 year-olds using a nutrition program his company developed.
“To me, psychedelics are substances that can help us bridge outside of the constraints of our mind,” he said.
