The Ezra Klein Show · New York Times Opinion

Michael Pollan’s Journey to the Borderlands of Consciousness

March 31, 2026·1 hr 28 min·7 clips
A developmental psychologist told Michael Pollan that children are in a state of consciousness similar to LSD — they're tripping all the time.
Consciousness stays strangely close.

As heard by us

A sharp, body-minded meditation on consciousness that keeps circling back to the limits of thought.

This conversation treats consciousness as a hard problem, not a decorative one. Michael Pollan moves through the theories and experiments with steady control, while Ezra Klein keeps pushing toward the place where an idea becomes lived experience.

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Why you'd press play

You want a calm, serious guide to why consciousness gets stranger the closer you look.

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