Michael Pollan’s journey to understand consciousness through Zen and science
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| Author, explorer Michael Pollan |
His new book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, asks the central question: What is consciousness?
*Joan Halifax collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof in the 1970s, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work (palliative care) with the dying through her Project on Being with Dying, which she founded. She is on the board of directors of the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism..jpg)
Joan Halifax ( with now toxic Dalai
Lama cropped out except for arm)
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“Consciousness has kind of become the secular substitute for the soul [Ancient Greek psyche as in psychology and psyche-delic],” Pollan tells interviewer Terry Gross.
Pollan also talks about current studies on consciousness and whether other animals, plants, bacteria, algae, and programmed hardware/software combinations known as "artificial intelligence" have or can eventually have consciousness. More + AUDIO
- Science: Plants are conscious, emit sounds, and talk
- Michael Pollan co-founded the BCSP (UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics)
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| Michael Pollan discusses how time-lapse photography reveals the hidden life of plants |
NEW BOOK: A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
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| A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness |
Buddhist author Michael Pollan has a Number 1 best seller
in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who/what has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity.
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: It feels [not thinks] like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience (sentience) of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries.
How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by [perceptions,] feelings, thoughts, and a sense of "self"?
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| American Joan Halifax |
In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.
When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy [tofu like] gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality.
Pollan takes readers to the cutting edge of the field, where neuroscientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness.
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| Plants are conscious, sentient |
In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than this everyday reality.
Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own brains and minds, hearts and feelings, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and what we assume to be our deepest selves. More: A World Appears
See all formats and editions for savings. Book comes out Feb. 24, 2026. Pre-order price guarantee. Named a "most anticipated book of 2026" by The New York Times, TIME, and Oprah Daily.
- Guest Michael Pollan, Terry Gross, Tonya Mosley, Adam Staniszewski, NPR.org, Feb. 19, 2026; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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