Pollan came to psychedelics late, skeptical, and in his sixties took LSD, psilocybin, and 5-MeO-DMT under guides so he could report from inside. Around that he builds the history: The first wave of research in the fifties and sixties, Leary wrecking it, thirty years of prohibition, and the current trials at Hopkins and NYU using psilocybin for terminal-cancer anxiety, depression, and addiction. The neuroscience chapter on the default mode network is the best short explanation anywhere of what the drugs appear to be doing. He’s a careful reporter working on material that makes careful reporters sound ridiculous, and he pulls it off. You can skip his extended description of his own trip. Like someone else’s dream, it’s not remotely interesting, and no one cares.