Episode #154 - He's Building VR to Replace Psychedelics | Dr Srini Pillay

Dr Srini Pillay is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist building virtual reality technology to replace psychedelics, and the man the UN calls to train its leaders.

In this episode of The Conscious Man 7 Podcast, I sit down with him: brain researcher, co-founder of Reulay, to explore what's actually left of being human in the age of artificial intelligence.

Srini grew up in a humble home in Durban, South Africa, under apartheid, and became the first person of colour in his department at Stellenbosch University before going on to Harvard Medical School, where he completed seventeen years of nationally funded brain imaging research. Today he trains leaders inside the United Nations, the World Bank, McKinsey and the U.S. Department of Defense, and he's building technology that eases anxiety in astronauts bound for Mars.

In this conversation we cover:

The apartheid-era childhood that shaped his understanding of identity and resilienceWhy he believes we're entering an "Age of Illumination," moving beyond an era built on reason aloneHow artificial intelligence already outperforms doctors at reading surgical video and passing medical exams, and what that means for human purposeThe concept of "psychological Halloweenism," trying on another identity to unlock what your usual self suppressesWhat he's learned inside rooms with the Department of Defense, the UN, the World Bank and McKinsey that most people never get to seeWhy American optimism just hit its lowest point in almost twenty years, and the psychology behind collective fearThe cyberdelic: a patented VR experience built to simulate psychedelics without the drugWhy he questions standard medical advice on cholesterol, even inside his own familyWhat positive disintegration means, and why falling apart can be the doorway to becoming who you actually areSrini has spent his career inside the institutions most people are taught to either trust blindly or distrust completely. This conversation sits in the tension between the two.

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Website – https://nbgcorporate.com/

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