On The Same Paige with Paige Leacey

Paige Leacey
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Hey, I’m Paige Leacey - host of On The Same Paige. I'm a writer, researcher, & student of meditation. This is a space for deep conversations about how the mind works - how we form a sense of self, how we perceive reality, & why we think & act the way we do. Each week, I sit down with guests - or sometimes by myself - to break down ideas from neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, & consciousness research, & connect them back to real (messy) life. If you’re someone who overthinks, questions deeply, & wants to understand how subjective experience (may or may not) work - you're among friends.

  1. E36. Imagination Is More Dangerous Than You Think | Prof. Jim Davies

    3d ago

    E36. Imagination Is More Dangerous Than You Think | Prof. Jim Davies

    Your memory isn't a recording. It's a reconstruction — and every time you recall something, your brain is quietly rewriting it.In this episode of On The Same Paige, Paige sits down with Dr. Jim Davies — Professor of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory, author of Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power, and co-host of the award-winning Minding the Brain podcast.⏱️ Timestamps:00:00 — Introduction01:08 — What Is the Mind? Consciousness & Functionalism13:15 — Memory Is a Reconstruction, Not a Recording30:25 — The Inner Landscape: Intrusive Thoughts & Mental Time Travel42:09 — When Imagination Becomes Dangerous47:40 — Hallucinations, Brain Randomness & Human Obsessions57:17 — Does AI Imagine? Creativity & Improv🔗 Connect with Jim Davies:Website: https://www.jimdavies.orgBook — Imagination: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jim-Davies/author/B001KIITAY?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=trueMinding the Brain Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/minding-the-brain/id1343364845🔗 Connect with Paige:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__

    1h 4m
  2. E35. The Nature vs Nurture Debate Is Wrong | Prof. Greg Downey

    May 25

    E35. The Nature vs Nurture Debate Is Wrong | Prof. Greg Downey

    Most people think the nature vs. nurture debate is a question of which side wins. Professor Greg Downey says that's exactly the wrong question — and that framing it as a competition is what's been holding back our understanding of human potential for decades. In this conversation, Paige sits down with Prof. Greg Downey — neuroanthropologist, professor at Macquarie University, and co-founder of the field of neuroanthropology — to explore how your nervous system is in a constant state of retooling based on the environment you're in, the skills you practice, and the culture you inhabit. What you'll discover in this episode: 🩷 Why separating nature and nurture is a category error — and what to ask instead 🩷 How culture literally trains your senses to perceive things others can't 🩷 Why your "self" and consciousness are skills — not fixed traits 🩷 The neuroscience behind extraordinary human abilities (echolocation, free diving, and more) 🩷 The single most effective way to learn any new physical or cognitive skill CHAPTERS 00:00 — What is neuroanthropology? 01:43 — Why the nature vs. nurture debate is wrong 03:42 — How culture trains your senses 06:10 — What "culture" actually means 10:06 — How language shapes what you can perceive 13:08 — Neuroplasticity: how the brain rewires for skill 18:09 — Is consciousness a skill? 22:35 — Daniel Kish: the man who sees with sound 25:01 — Free divers and the outer limits of human physiology 30:02 — How to study real human potential 37:44 — Cage fighters, capoeira & exploring consciousness 41:44 — The "consciousness platter" metaphor 51:34 — Psychedelics, context & cultural transplanting 56:46 — The fastest way to learn any new skill 59:49 — What fieldwork in Brazil taught Greg about himself ABOUT PROF. GREG DOWNEY Greg Downey is a professor of anthropology at Macquarie University (Sydney) and co-founder of the neuroanthropology field. His work bridges neuroscience and cultural anthropology to understand how human development is shaped by the environments, practices, and communities we inhabit. Research profile: https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/greg-downey/ Wesbite: https://neuroanthropology.net/ 🔗 Connect with Paige: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370 Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com Instagram: @samepaige__ TikTok: @samepaige__

    1h 2m
  3. E34. Psilocybin Is a More Intelligent You | James W. Jesso Interview

    May 19

    E34. Psilocybin Is a More Intelligent You | James W. Jesso Interview

    What does it mean to have a relationship with a psychedelic substance and why does that framing matter more than any protocol, ceremony, or clinical trial? In this conversation, Paige sits down with author, educator, and psilocybin advocate James W. Jesso to explore the philosophical, ethical, and psychological dimensions of working with psychedelics responsibly. This isn't about biohacking with microdoses or chasing ego-death status. It's about taking the intelligence of these substances seriously - and understanding what's at stake when you don't. What we cover: 🩷 Why viewing psilocybin as a relationship changes everything about safety 🩷 The difference between internal and external safe containers and why most people skip the harder one 🩷 How psychedelics can surface deep trauma and how to avoid re-traumatization 🩷 Why your guide's personal experience matters more than their credentials 🩷 The heroic dosing trend and the real harm James sees it causing 🩷 How mainstream media is distorting psychedelic culture and expectations ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction 02:40 — Psychedelics as a Relationship 07:40 — Internal vs External Safety 10:30 — Trauma & Psychedelic-Assisted Healing 11:30 — Why Your Sitter's Experience Is Non-Negotiable 28:35 — The Heroic Dose Myth 🔗 James W. Jesso: https://www.youtube.com/@AdventuresThroughTheMind James' Books: https://www.jameswjesso.com/category/books/ More Links: https://linktr.ee/jameswjesso 🔗 Connect with Paige: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370 Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com Instagram: @samepaige__ TikTok: @samepaige__

    39 min
  4. E33. Your Psychedelic Therapist Has Never Taken Psychedelics (And That's a Problem)

    May 12

    E33. Your Psychedelic Therapist Has Never Taken Psychedelics (And That's a Problem)

    Is the Western medical model about to regulate away the very thing that makes psychedelics transformative? In this episode, I share my three burning questions about where psychedelic therapy is headed — and what we might be losing as we scale it. Here's what I cover: 🩷 Therapist vs. Guide — The real difference between sitting with a clinical therapist and a traditional ceremonial guide, and why it matters more than most people realize. 🩷 The quality of trust — I think the facilitator's ability to hold uncertainty without flinching is what actually does the deep healing in a psychedelic session. Is that something you can learn from a textbook? 🩷 Apprenticeship vs. credentials — Shamanic traditions apprentice their guides for decades. We're fast-tracking facilitators through clinical trials and certifications. Are those the same thing? I also get into Robert Carhart-Harris's concept of the entropic brain — how psychedelics push the brain's default mode network (the seat of your sense of self) into a high-entropy state that makes transformation possible. And why the conditions that allow that transformation may be incompatible with a tightly regulated medical environment. This isn't an anti-therapy take. It's a question about what gets lost when we try to make the unpredictable... predictable. Drop your thoughts in the comments — I genuinely want to know what you think. —————————————————————— 🕐 TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Why psychedelics are having their moment 1:32 Who's most excited to talk about consciousness (and why) 2:00 Therapist vs. Guide — the key distinction 4:45 The Entropic Brain: Robert Carhart-Harris explained 6:48 Default Mode Network, ego dissolution & self-narrative 9:00 Trust as the active ingredient in transformation 12:05 What the Western medical model demands 12:57 Apprenticeship vs. PhDs and peer-reviewed papers 15:15 The big question: Can we scale without losing the magic? —————————————————————— 📚 REFERENCES → Robert Carhart-Harris — Entropic Brain theory → Sara Imari Walker — physicist, "humans are small objects but deep in time."

    16 min
  5. E32. You're Not Stuck, Your Brain Just Thinks You're Going to Die

    May 5

    E32. You're Not Stuck, Your Brain Just Thinks You're Going to Die

    Your brain is not wired to tell you the truth. It's wired to reduce uncertainty. In this episode, I break down how the brain functions as a prediction machine, constantly scanning for threat and trying to control outcomes - and how that process shapes your behaviour, your habits, and even the more subtle elements of your life. We also get into what happens when your brain jumps to worst-case scenarios, and why you’re likely underestimating your ability to handle whatever comes next. Get in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

    19 min
  6. E31. The Protective Potential of Giving Birth Naturally

    Mar 21

    E31. The Protective Potential of Giving Birth Naturally

    What if giving birth could resolve years of painful intimacy you'd never noticed was there?Angel Drake is a spiritual teacher and energy practitioner who works with women at the intersection of mystical traditions, meditation, and psychological healing. She studies within Vedic and Sufi lineages and has been working with women as a coach and guide for over a decade. What I love about Angel is that she's willing to put language to things most people leave in the category of inexplicable - without making any of it precious or performative. She holds serious spiritual practice and a real sense of humor together, and this conversation moved to places I neither of us expectedWe talk about what the practice and skill of concentration made possible across her 16 hours of labour, how birth can resolve years of painful sex, post-birth intimacy and how the body changes, what Sufism is and how it's practiced, the invisible load of new motherhood, and the story of a dark energy encounter Angel had at 22 - and how it shaped the path she's on now. 00:00:00 - What's coming up00:01:54 - Word of the year: channel 00:07:24 - Meditation as a new mum 00:13:28 - Focus and the world 00:20:14 - What Sufism actually is00:25:22 - Angel's 16-hour birth00:28:29 - Working with fear in labour00:49:04 - Relationship after a baby01:03:37 - Post-birth intimacy01:16:43 - What is God?01:20:46 - Dark energy encounter Get in touch with Angel Drake:Instagram: @angelikaalanaWebsite: https://www.angeldrake.com/Somatic Healing Institute: https://www.angelikaalana.com/Get in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

    1h 31m
  7. E30. Your Internal Parliament: Who's Really in Control?

    Mar 13

    E30. Your Internal Parliament: Who's Really in Control?

    If you are made of multiple parts, who is the "I" watching them all? Ella Shannon is an accredited counsellor and sex therapist based in Cairns, specialising in relationships, EMDR, and psychedelic integration. Since she discovered IFS, it's become more than a modality - it's become a lens for how she sees herself, her relationships, and the world. This model for personal growth and self-understanding doesn't just describe how we heal. It asks something stranger: what are you, exactly, when the parts step aside? In this conversation, we go from how parts develop across a lifetime, to whether animals have them, to IFS sessions that feel like psychedelics - and to manager parts that can physically grip so hard they prevent altered states of consciousness from working at all. We get into what self-energy actually is and how you'd recognise it, what happens in conflict when two people are defending different versions of reality, why reaching enlightened states isn't the end of healing, and what Ella believes about Source/God/the possibility of a cosmic host after years of this work. 00:00:00 - What's coming up 00:02:48 - IFS as Lifestyle and Lens 00:04:15 - One Self or Many? 00:09:01 - Exiles, Managers, Protectors 00:14:27 - Parts on a Spectrum 00:16:18 - What Is the Self? 00:23:43 - Your Parts vs Your Partner's 00:46:08 - IFS Goes Psychedelic 00:49:03 - When Parts Block Psychedelics 00:51:17 - Does the Healing Actually Stick? 00:55:28 - Bliss States, Unhealed Parts 00:57:04 - Ella on Source and Love Get in touch with Ella: https://www.ellashannon.com Instagram: @evolution_of_intimacy Podcast: The Parts Party Get in touch with me: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370 Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com Instagram: @samepaige__ TikTok: @samepaige__ Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

    1h 2m
  8. E29. Instinct vs Intuition: The Difference That Saves Lives

    Mar 2

    E29. Instinct vs Intuition: The Difference That Saves Lives

    What's the actual difference between instinct and intuition - and can you tell them apart when something is actually at stake?Brianna Bowley is a performance coach who works with athletes, and she's been training Brazilian jiu jitsu long enough to start seeing it as a map for everything - fear, relaxation under pressure, how the body processes threat before the brain has caught up.What I love about the way Brianna thinks is that fear isn't the enemy - it's information. She opens the episode with a story from Perth: being followed at night, then arriving at an Airbnb to find a smashed window and blood in the sink. What stayed with me was what she shared about the aftermath. I also get personal about my own relationship to violence and what a psychedelic experience showed me about how much of it my nervous system had absorbed.In this conversation, we discuss the constant threat assessment women carry, why the most relaxed person in the room is the most powerful, the human need for conflict and what happens when it has no outlet, and how to start tracking the sensations of your own body so you can work with fear rather than against it - when it counts.00:00:00 - What's coming up00:01:24 - Being followed in Perth00:09:21 - Instinct vs intuition00:19:56 - Fear and martial arts00:25:47 - Being a woman in BJJ00:34:03 - Strategy vs muscle memory00:39:44 - Hypnotherapy and time00:43:26 - What fighter would you be01:02:19 - Humans and violence01:07:02 - Growing up around gangs01:10:15 - Being chased by a chainsaw01:16:09 - Consuming violence online01:29:08 - Tracking your patternsGet in touch with Brianna:https://www.brianabowley.comInstagram: @brianabowleyGet in touch with me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeaceySpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4UApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.comInstagram: @samepaige__TikTok: @samepaige__Three new episodes a month - subscribe for more!

    1h 31m
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About

Hey, I’m Paige Leacey - host of On The Same Paige. I'm a writer, researcher, & student of meditation. This is a space for deep conversations about how the mind works - how we form a sense of self, how we perceive reality, & why we think & act the way we do. Each week, I sit down with guests - or sometimes by myself - to break down ideas from neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, & consciousness research, & connect them back to real (messy) life. If you’re someone who overthinks, questions deeply, & wants to understand how subjective experience (may or may not) work - you're among friends.

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