Oprah’s Talking Psychedelics—And No, She’s Not Handing Them Out Like Cars.

In case you missed it, Michael Pollan was on the Oprah podcast this week.

So, Oprah and Michael Pollan are talking about psychedelics. That alone tells you how far we’ve come—just a few years ago, these conversations were buried under stigma. Now, they’re on mainstream platforms, framed as the future of mental health treatment. And honestly? That’s both exciting and a little scary.

If you’ve read How to Change Your Mind or listened to the recent podcast, you probably felt the same mix of wonder and hesitation. The research is wildly promising—psilocybin and LSD are showing incredible potential for depression, addiction, and trauma. But there’s also the very real risk factor: these substances can blow the doors off your psyche, and not always in a way that feels safe or productive.

Where Does Ketamine Fit Into All of This?

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is: “Ketamine is a psychedelic, so it must be like LSD or mushrooms, right?”

Not really.

Ketamine is technically a psychedelic in the sense that it alters consciousness, but it operates in a completely different way:

#1 It’s much milder and more manageable. There are no swirling colors, ego death, or feeling like you’ve left your body behind (unless you’re taking very high doses). Instead, ketamine creates a gentle dissociative state, allowing you to step outside your usual mental loops and see things from a new perspective—without the intensity of a full-blown psychedelic trip.

#2 It works FAST and the journey is QUICK. With most psychedelics the trip is long. The average for psilocybin is around four to six hours, while LSD is often ten to twelve HOURS! With ketamine, the trip is around forty to sixty minutes.

#3 It’s a therapeutic tool, not just an experience. Unlike psilocybin or LSD, ketamine isn’t just about the journey—it’s about what comes next. The real transformation happens in the therapy that follows, where you can process insights, rewire patterns, and make lasting changes. Ketamine opens the door, but therapy is what helps you walk through it.

The Podcast Misses Something Major: Integration Matters.

One thing the podcast (and a lot of psychedelic media) tends to gloss over? Healing doesn’t stop after the experience ends.

There’s this seductive idea that one big, mind-blowing trip will fix everything—that if you take enough LSD or psilocybin, you’ll have some earth-shattering revelation and just…be cured. If only.

The truth is, insight is meaningless if you don’t integrate it. You can have the most profound psychedelic experience of your life, but if you go back to the same habits, same thought patterns, and same unconscious behaviors…what really changed?

Integration is where the real work happens. It’s taking what you learned in the experience and applying it to your actual, day-to-day life. It’s a process, not a single moment of clarity. And this is where ketamine therapy truly shines—because it happens in a structured setting, with real therapeutic support, helping you translate those insights into action.

The World Wants You to Be Unconscious—Choose Something Different.

We live in a society that encourages numbness. Scroll endlessly, drink the stress away, overwork yourself, distract, avoid, repeat. Choosing to heal—choosing to be conscious—is an act of resistance.

Psychedelics (including ketamine) can help crack that door open. They can show you things about yourself that you couldn’t see before. But the real question is: What will you do with that awareness?

At Koru Wellness, we believe healing is about more than just the medicine—it’s about the process, the work, and the commitment to being a conscious human in an unconscious world.

If you’re curious about what ketamine-assisted therapy actually feels like, or how it compares to other psychedelics, let’s talk. You deserve a healing path that’s safe, supported, and designed to help you grow—not just to give you a wild experience.