This Is Your Mind On Plants cover art

This Is Your Mind On Plants

Opium—Caffeine—Mescaline

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This Is Your Mind On Plants

By: Michael Pollan
Narrated by: Michael Pollan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness 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, and the equally powerful taboos.

In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, 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. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

© Michael Pollan 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Biological Sciences Botany & Plants Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Outdoors & Nature Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Thought-Provoking Mental Health Health

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Critic reviews

Pollan is always an entertaining writer, and a deep thinker with a light touch ... it's a trip - engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering. (Sophie McBain)
This fascinating insight into our relationship with mind-altering plants weaves personal experimentation with cultural history ... Pollan is the perfect guide through this sometimes controversial territory; curious, careful and, as his book progresses, increasingly open minded. (Tim Adams)
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. (Rob Dunn)
Brilliant, compulsively readable ... Pollan's storytelling is deft, forthright and fascinating. (Charles Foster)
Like it or not, we are undergoing a drugs revolution ... thankfully Pollan is here to guide us through this putative challenge ... [this] relatable, middle class New York plant fancier might be the ideal standard bearer for today's calmer, more scientific approach to the subject. (Josh Glancy)
Pollan's intertwining of reportage, citizen science and historical scholarship is a delightful and informative read ... [he] has a rational optimism that might tempt even the most sober and sceptical to try to broaden their horizons. (AJ Lees)
Pollan is a gentle, generous writer. (David Aaronovitch)
Michael Pollan weaves tales of drug experimentation into a historical account of our long relationship with them. (Simon Ings)
This Is Your Mind on Plants is witty, entertaining and polite, but it is not trivial. Subtly but assuredly, Pollan argues that which plants (and fungi) we are allowed and how depends, consciously or otherwise, on the interests of power. (Josh Raymond)
The descriptions of London's coffee house culture and Honoré de Balzac's barbarous habit of ingesting dry coffee grounds to fuel all-night scribbling sessions are worth the book's price alone ... The book is really about the relation between each plant and the humans who consume it, tackled in a non-judgmental and objective way that seeks to dispel the ignorance, prejudice and demonisation they attract.
All stars
Most relevant
Again Michael Pollan writes and edicates in such an educational yet gripping way. Not only did I find this an interesting read, but it will shape my future relationship with caffeine and other plant derived mind altering substances

Another fascinating and educational book by my nee favourite author

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A fantastic and interesting book - learnt so many new things. The parts on caffeine and mescaline were great - amazing to see how they have affected our lives! The narrator was also excellent.

Fantastic

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I’ve very much enjoyed Michael Pollan’s books and this is a great read too - or great reading by the author I should say. It’s a nice accompaniment to his previous book, How to Change Your Mind, which I highly recommend. However, a bit shorter, a bit lighter, it just wasn’t as deep or good. One chapter being a previously published article, was this a bit of a rushed book through the pandemic? It seems like it. Worth reading but I feel there was more in the author.

Interesting, but not as good as How to change your mind

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I had difficulty at the beginning of the book
I thought I might even return it, I lost interest but my friend who read it said to pull through a little more and I was very happy that I did

Brilliant

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This book explores two subjects that I have not given much thought to and one that I think about constantly.

The material is interesting, peppered with interviews and read as only an author can read their book.

For me, the chapter on caffeine seemed quite light, likely because I have already researched coffee a fair bit. (I would like to point out that although Pollen makes the point that growers make barely any money, the process from bean to cup accounts for a lot of different costs, and if the café is charging a sensible premium then the costs to get the coffee to you do make up 98%< of the cost and are warranted.)

Additionally I feel like, although Pollan points out the difference between cultural appropriation and the use of peyote (diminishing supply for native Americans). The use of the term is self reinforcing its use in culture - cultures have borrowed and changed each others customs for melania and the current narrative that this is a bad thing only serves to demonise those who a bad actor wishes to dispense with.

Another great book from Pollan

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