Neal Brennan On: Talking Back to Your Inner Critic, Why Chasing Validation Doesn't Work, and His Harrowing Psychedelic Journeys

0:03Hey, everybody, welcome to the 10 % Happier podcast. Buckle up. We've got a great episode. My guest today is Neal Brennan, co-creator of a legendary Chappelle show. He's got three Netflix specials, Blocks, Three Mics, and Crazy Good. And he's the host of his own podcast, also called Blocks. We talk about how to overcome malaise, how to talk back to your inner critic, and his extremely harrowing psychedelic experiences. This is a really good one. Neil Brennan, welcome to the show. Hello. Thanks for having me. First time in a long time. Thank you. I appreciate that. Right back at you. Actually, I once stood next to you at a urinal at a wedding and was so excited, but I had to hold myself back from saying something to you because it would have been incredibly...

0:49I feel like it would be massively douchey of me to say whose wedding so i'm not gonna say it um but it was somebody we both know and uh i really had to hold myself i've only been to like four weddings in your life that i mean i as an adult really because i would have recognized you i'm gonna be honest i was mad i haven't been on this podcast sooner i'm dead serious i i'll show you emails i will show you emails that shocks so that no Of course, this is my particular perception problem, and I think it's a common human problem, which is kind of conspiracy depression. It's a depression that lends itself to conspiracy and rumination.

1:37It's like a negative. I have conspiracy theories, but only about personal relationships. Okay, so I think I have the same thing, but let me just make sure I understand what you're saying. I kind of think everybody doesn't value me as much as they should. I thought you weren't having me on the podcast because you didn't respect. I would told my publicist to ask you if I could do it. So the fact that this is and when I say it was like eight years ago, it was when you started. You needed guests. Yeah. I'm going to be honest. You could only have Jack Kornfield on here so many times. OK, so I know where I speak.

2:14Sharon Salzberg is back. Whereas the truth is I almost, while we had our members out, said something fangirly to you at a urinal. I thought someone hated me for 29 years and just found out they didn't three weeks ago. I almost started crying. Someone I did. Not even like why it wasn't on the podcast, but I don't understand what happens. Because I'll DM people. The DMs are open, guys, if you want me on your podcast. So I've DM people and I'm just like, I want to take you into my pocket. And they've done it. What's interesting to me is that you have this conspiratorial cast of mine. Yeah. And you're Neil fucking Brent.

3:00I know. But the problem is a lot of times the fucking goes away and the Neil, the N and the B are not capitalized. And it's not an acute E.E. Cummings way. It's a low self-esteem way. And also that the Neil fucking Brennan, it does not that a lot of people don't share whatever you think that is. Sometimes I sometimes I'm on your side. And other times I'm like, oh, I'm I kind of agree with them. I kind of agree with the the negative. What are Nixon called the negative nabobs? Nattering nabobs of negativity. Yes, there you go. This kind of gets to one of the famous stories about you, which is after the implosion of the Chappelle show, you carried around a little card that listed your achievements.

3:51Yes. So you kind of still need to do that. That tide has risen. I no longer need an index card of positive attributes, like Memento, where I need to remind myself of my credits. We should just for just for younger people or the culturally illiterate, just fill in some things here. So you were the co-creator and co-writer and often director of some of the most famous segments on what I believe to be the funniest television show in the history of television, Chappelle's show. and then the show fell apart for a bunch of complicated reasons that we don't need to get into. And you had a bit of a crisis and were then carrying around a little card in your pocket to remind you that you weren't a piece of shit.

4:42That's well said. Yeah, yeah, that's about right. Yeah, yes, yes. That's it. I can't even put a caveat on it. That's basically what was happening. Would you say that is, I'm going to use psychological speak here, hopefully not psycho babble but is that like core wound uh stuff i don't know truthfully i i because i i don't because i don't feel that way anymore it's a little hard to access the kind of the origin of it i think one of the nice things about aging is you just kind of like it's kind of character traits like expire and i mean some good some bad we just talked about not being able to remember stories, what stories we've told.

5:29And a part of me thinks it's because we podcast too much. And then a part of me thinks it's because I don't really give a shit anymore. I'm not, I don't think it's important to be like very sharp in every possible, uh, you know, attribute of life and, and category and, and, uh, fastidious in every way. And just like, ah, I don't know. And it's great. The core wound, like, I don't think I'm good enough. I think part of my problem was, like, I always thought I was pretty good. But then the world would be like, no. No, you're not. And I'd be like, really? No. So, and that was a big, when Chappelle's show, it was a big, like, no.

6:15Absolutely not. But you were shouted out on the show. As a viewer, you were, to me, I thought you were like the Alpha and Omega. I can't explain it. Between me and Dave, there was like an understanding. But between me and Comedy Central, between me and another exec producer, there was always just like a like thwarting. It was always just like, eh, beat it. It's what I call doing the dishes. Like you can come, but you got to do the dishes. You won an Emmy for directing the Rick James. I did. I got nominated. The guy who directed the Oscars in 2003 beat me for directing. You saw the Emmys, the Oscars that year.

6:57You'd know it was worth it. It's like Dances with Wolves beating Goodfellas. I really relate to that. You do? Yes, because I was in the news business for 30 years. And on paper, if I had made my own little index card, I had done a lot of things. But I always felt like I didn't get as much respect as the other guys. I didn't get as far as many of my peers made it in the industry. I remember what probably the worst day for me, just in terms of my morale as a part of ABC News. We did it. They brought everybody together to take a big group photo in like 2010. And they had all of us in this photo. And then they said, OK, everybody else leave except for these core eight.

7:39Do they name the core eight? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We all had to sit there and watch them get their picture taken. And that was the picture they ended up using everywhere and all the press. Everything else was. Yeah. I can. I mean, there was literally like a Netflix one of those three weeks ago. They didn't make anybody leave. But there's plenty. I mean, there's a joke in the blocks. Netflix special I did where Ted Sarandos at a party said, it's so exciting to be all around all my comedy heroes. And Chris Rock yelled out and Neil Brennan. which is fucking hilarious yeah even as neil brenner really yeah that to me is like getting a picasso from picasso do you know what i mean like why be friends with chris rock even if the picasso drawing is you as a piece of shit awful and awful like i but i also know like i'm the least famous person there in terms of comedy heroes is like if it's me jerry eddie murphy Chris Rock Dave, Ellen.

8:36It's like, I'm not, I'm not on there in their category. Like even I know that I'm in a category. It's not a blowout. And I know it's not a blowout because I've written for them. So it's, this is a charisma issue. It's a charisma issue. If I can write again, I don't know what this podcast has become, but if I can write for Chris, Dave, Ellen, Seth, and they're all some of the biggest comedians or whatever well then i can clearly it's not a writing issue it's not a funny issue it's like i'm anyone would say i'm funny anyone would say i'm a great writer so it's a charisma issue or it's a something it's it's a performing issue right you've had four netflix specials three and a half okay those are really well regarded specials so it can't be a performance issue.

9:29No, well, here's a good, and this is not anything I feel bad about anymore. Like, I really don't. This is a truly, I'm just explaining what it was like from my point of view that I can look at it seriously objectively. Like, when I say the Chris joke was a clean, like, it was a clean hit, it's a clean hit. Like, it's a fucking great joke. So I posted a joke yesterday, literally a joke, on Instagram yesterday, june 2026 and someone write this guy's one of my favorite writers i'm on stage doing stand-up what did i write that you like like okay chapelle show what did i write you don't know what i wrote you know i wrote this and i'm performing it but it's it i think it's one of these branding things or something where people go like oh you're a writer they just go like oh that guy writes for dave about so so it's it's kind of a hard thing for them it's like when someone says their name's billy and then they go no call me william and you're like all right come on or a better one is uh hassan minaj started saying no i'm hassan hey man you told me to call you hassan for eight years it the grooves are pretty deep or another one my sisters i don't call them by their married names sway for them to get forced.

10:55They'll be back. They'll be back to Brennan soon enough. A quick note before we hear from our sponsors, who, for the record, I actually like. We are very diligent to the point of being quite annoying to some of our business partners. Very, very diligent and picky when it comes to picking our sponsors. That said, I get it. Not everybody loves listening to ads. And that's why I want to tell you about a way to get this show ad-free. It's called 10 % Happier Plus. It's a subscription right inside Apple Podcasts. Doesn't matter what app you're on right now, you can find it right there. Every episode, ad-free, plus a bonus guided meditation every Sunday from teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sebenay Selassie, and Vinny Ferraro.

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13:20You said before that you, this, this Sturm und Drang, this kind of pain is not as operative for you anymore. How did that change? Yeah, I've talked about it at some length, but I did ayahuasca probably 15 times. Maybe it's up to 20 at this point. 15, 20. Then I did Bufo, 5-Me of DMT, the nuclear bomb of psychedelics. And it was like it changed my brain chemistry. Which one? Ayahuasca, DMT, or the combo? Both of them. It was over two years. And then since then, MDMA has been completely inexact process. And I don't know if it could have worked any other sequence, but that's the sequence I've done them in.

14:09And again, not by design, not by having said that also not haphazardly, not just like, what is it? so uh so but it's been it changed it changed my essence to the point where people that don't know will come up and go be like what's different about you it transformed me the 10 % happier I would say I'm because I was thinking on the way over here I'm probably 35 % happier from drugs if you want to go if you want that extra 25 % go to my DMs do the math by the way don't go to my DMs because people somebody got I mean somebody people will because I talk about this shit publicly people think I have it and can give it to them so they or like hey where can I go in California I'm like I don't you gotta kind of do some of your own finally this is an area that I would I would like you to do your own research.

15:08Please. When you're doing all your COVID stuff and your vaccine stuff, go the extra mile. What is the mechanism by which ayahuasca, DMT, and then ecstasy slash MDMA? Oh, that's old guy. Tell me you're old without telling me you're old. I think I'm older than you. What is the mechanism by which this transformed you? It was harrowing. I had an ayahuasca experience that was really awful. First one was great. And then the second and third were great. The fourth was a nightmare because it was with what I call a rickety shaman. Just didn't know what he was doing. And drank too much. And, you know, ayahuasca is really, it's a very, it's entheogenic.

16:03so it's i don't even know what the definition of that is but it's you're dealing with some real non-linear i believe spiritual stuff right so you're going i was thrust into outer space by myself and the universe was gonna die so i was just literally going i was i was breathing it's one of your terms it's an indian um uh it's breathing thing like where you go no ujjayi no but one of somebody will know uh sound off in the comments i thought i was in outer space and i thought this would be some kind of beacon i was doing it for three hours but i knew you were going to be okay from my point of view i thought i was in outer space the universe is going to die saturn rivers babies so came came to covered in vomit i'll show you the photo, you can put it on your stupid podcast.

17:00And I was scared for three days. I had to sleep with the lights on. I'm scared of what? I don't know. I think like some kind of PTSD reaction. Now, two ceremonies earlier, I'm doing a flashback, two ceremonies, I went from being an atheist to believing in God. As I'm in outer space and the universe is going to die, I was thinking like i don't we don't need to do this i believe in the central creation force we don't got to do all this so after the bad experience we'll call episode four where i outer space whatever the the floorboards in my mind felt like when when you go off antidepressants they got mushy i had to go off antidepressants to do ayahuasca yeah that's why i'm jumping around i haven't done it for that reason might be worth it um but but might not right well you're not selling it well covered in vomit after hold on hold on you're this guy's getting caught up in the you're like the guy in the movie goes who's that it's just wait um so when i went off antidepressants i would say the floorboards of my mood were a little mushy right after this awful ayahuasca experience my floorboards were firmer and higher that's the best way to describe it after you went through after i went through a harrowing outer space vomiting on myself experience and after you slept with the lights on for three days yeah so you had to get through the harrowing experience and the aftermath and i actually think it had happened before the lights thing i think it happened i think it happened when i came to i was like unnerved what is it about the harrowing experience that would have reinforced the floorboards i believe that these psychedelic experiences are or chemicals whatever you want to call them it feels like a software upgrade right when you upgrade your computer it goes to sleep this wasn't i you have to it's basically like kind of going through surgery and you're awake it's a bit like like how would you change a human spirit and character you know what i mean like how do you how do you change 50 however many years it was at this point experience life consciousness how would you alter that not like you like like you say over but like how would that be altered i think it's through these medicine chemical whatever you want to call them i think i think that's a way to do it do you think you needed the rickety shaman and the outer space um harrowing experience in order to get the benefit or could you have gotten it with all of the positive experiences?

19:42I kind of think I had to have the bad experience. I think that's what changes the brain. Again, this is completely theoretical and I and and don't record this or release it. It's completely theoretical, but that's the sense I have of it is that the the positive experiences are helpful. That felt like the most brain alteration I went through. Like that was, and okay, so that's the, that's the ayahuasca number four. Ceremonies five through nine are a nightmare. I might've had like PTSD or something from the fourth one. I mean, at one point in number five, I'm in ceremony. I believe I hear a tiger in the room, like, like acoustically correct in the room and then a tiger comes around a table and it's the only time in my life i went oh like i've never done that you don't fall for jump scares i know i'll i'll wince but i don't i don't i don't do it um i believe that's the domain of the woman um no i have a joke about my i have a joke about my wife just constantly doing that like and by By the way, it's most women.

20:54They do it all day. My mom, sister, everybody. I also experienced things on ayahuasca that are really hard to explain. I feel like I regress isn't even the right word. Like you experience life from like a million years. It's like real pretty wild stuff. To say it's not for the faint of heart is, I don't know if everybody has this kind of experience. I should also note, like this is just my experience with it, But it's there's a there are times where I'd be on ayahuasca and I'd be so disoriented that I would have to remind myself I was a mammal. Wow. We're getting it gets pretty like take it what they call in in in in construction, taking it down to the studs.

21:43The knock on psychedelics is that they can be the experiences can be incredibly powerful, but without and this is the term of art integration. I know. Which again, that's one of those things. Integration is as vague a term as the toxins. Right. But some sort of practice to kind of get it into your molecules in an abiding way. And do you have that therapy, meditation, something? I've gone to therapy a lot and then less so in the last 10 years. But I don't drink. I'm vegetarian, vegan. I do meditate intermittently. so I have a journal. I do this. I think I integrate, but they don't tell you what integration is.

22:25That's the thing. You need to integrate. That's the problem. I mean, they think that's the legit critique of the psychedelic space. There's a lot of bullshit in psychedelics. I mean, there's just a lot of bullshit. There's just, it's a bit like a friend of mine who's in AI says, you can't really be negative. It's a bit of like, let's just affirm this. And it's like, guys, This is what I experienced in psychedelics where they go, oh, they're going to legalize Ibogaine. Okay. This is not just like go to the dispensary and get it type stuff. It's like you're dealing with potent streams of something.

23:04Yeah. So I haven't even told you about the really bad one. Whoa. Please do. So ayahuasca, one is great. Two and three are great. Four is a nightmare. Five through nine are also a nightmare. of the tiger of course another one maybe not the tiger one where i thought it was the rapture i was hearing helicopters i don't know why there were gonna be helicopters during the rapture and then maybe 10 through 17 were really beautiful uh transcendent there are times where it's too close to god that it's there's something uh so profound that it's like terrifying um in my experience i almost think you know there's a lot of vomiting and i once again i think a part of it is like i i don't know if i there i feel like there's a movie where some sort of deity appears and people are like vomiting like there's something so big it's like apocalypto you ever see apocalypto no i wonder why um directed by mel gibson um yeah that mel gibson after all the stuff i i see i separate the art from the artist we'll be right back the it's what's funny about mel gibson is like he's such a good director it's hilarious like the fact that he he he's like i'm gonna make a movie in aramaic and and a more obscure language and they're still gonna be great and big hits there's a lot of god stuff in in apocalypto and it is it really does feel that profound so in the midst maybe around uh between ayahuasca 13 and 14 i did um 5 mao dmt which is uh bufella various it's a the toad secretion that they turn into a powder and you smoke it and that one you go i you get like blasted into i believe i was blasted i i was blasted to a thing that i was like this is before the big bang i didn't know what breathing i didn't know anything i was like i'm the first i was like an amoeba in my head i heard the the phrase god's not here yet this is your this is why i'm saying like so they're just gonna legalize okay and they're not legalizing bufo but like ibogaine isn't that different from this so and then it kind of fades away after about 20 minutes 25 minutes and you come back into yourself and i was like okay that was i it was like i think that was good right about a week passes and i start to have what's called a reactivation what they used to call acid flashbacks it was a reactivation where i was talking to my friend ryan hamilton great comedian and we're standing on the corner 6th avenue and like bleaker and i can just kind of feel it creeping the sort of dmt white void energy and i'm like i gotta get i gotta get upstairs went upstairs tried to watch the linda ronstadt documentary on hbo as one does in moments of where you need solace.

26:22Show some respect. 80 million records is a lot of records. And then it kept coming. I was like, all right, I got to go to sleep. Woke up. Still, it was stronger. I was like, I went on like a coffee date with a woman. So I'm having coffee with a woman. And it's like half person and like kind of half white noise, which I'm like, this is bad. This is really bad. And you don't know when it's going to end. I don't know why it's there. Yeah. and I don't know why it's going to end. It's really disoriented. I start thinking like, am I in God's imagination? Am I, am I, I mean, just like really stuff that you're not, like to the point where I have a thought like, I might have to kill myself to get away from this.

27:08But here's why I didn't. And it's actually more harrowing. I didn't because I knew I'd be going into more of it. If I did, somebody said you're like my, your crown chakra was too open. or who knows what truly no one knows what it is now that having done some research i love the word research is completely ruined now um research like 70 percent of people get reactivations on which they don't if you if you do it intravenously which no one does you almost nobody gets uh reactivation smoking it it's like something like 70 percent in one of the studies i off. So, but I think they're minor. Mine was lasting two days, three days.

27:55And I was like, this is crazy where I'm like, I'm thinking things like, why are steps like stuff that's, and then I'm doing my block show in New York, in the, in the, in the West village. And it's, and it's going well, by the way, I should note it's going a little better, but I'm so disoriented. And I'm, I don't know, not like I don't know who I am or what I'm doing, but I'm just like, this is not relatable, what I'm experiencing right now. And it's not exactly depersonalization, which is you don't relate to, it's just, it was somewhere between derealization and depersonalization, which are two things that I've found out about later.

28:36My extensive research. Go to my GoFundMe and I'll research whatever I want. you pay for it America um and uh so there was a uh Hemingway Ken Burns documentary it's excellent and um it's actually better than Hemingway's writing and I mean I mean that because I was tried to read some afterward I was like I like that his story better than his writing and he's he talks about getting shot and he's like it was like a ribbon flew out of me and then flew back in and I was like, all right, we got to stop. Like, I just could not take, I was just in that. But the floorboards, Dan, I'm sorry to say, were firmer and higher.

29:22Is the punchline here that one needs to go through hell repeatedly? The punchline is I went through hell. I don't know if one does. I don't know if everyone does. It's like antidepressants where you don't know what's going to work, why it works, what it is. They don't even know what a lot of these drugs are. And I'm not saying it as a negative. I'm just saying it's like, I think they work, but they don't exactly know why. I believe I got like a half a percent better every day. Speaking of percentage and better, I got a half percent more what I would call myself. I just came back to like not open chakra what were our steps.

30:03I knew what steps were. Why our steps. If you're doing the math on that, that's... Takes a long time. Yeah, that's... I didn't do any psychedelics for a year because I was like, I didn't meditate. I knew you can't meditate. You cannot meditate because I didn't need to get removed from my human experience. I was like pretty squarely removed from it. But I got a little better every day. I was, and the other punchline is I was 10 % funnier. I swear to you. 10 to 15 % bigger laughs. Bigger, it was crazy. It was fucking crazy. Another thing, side effect. So when I'd go to sleep during this sort of period, this post-Bufo experience, I'd free fall.

30:51Just stuff like that where he's like, what is that? What's that? Like I said, I don't want to do any of this. I'm happy at 10%. You want to meet God or not? That's the thing I would say to people. It's like, yo, my man, you trying to meet God or what? Like, that's what it, I mean, yo, fam.

31:13That's what, I mean, that's really what it is. I don't know if I have the courage. Yeah, it's kamikaze shit more than anything. It's like, it's courage isn't even the right word. It is, I guess it is a form of courage, but it's a bit of kamikaze, nothing left to lose kind of thing. I didn't like my experience. Before I did it, things were kind of gray. Things were just a little drab. i mean it showed up in your comedy i mean there was so it was just a repeated refrain of unhappiness and my inner monologue is out of control and then that was free mics and blocks crazy good it's just fucking that's the result is i'm funnier i can hit the throttle i can throw i never it was like having tommy johnson it was like tommy johnson it's a it's a sports thing.

32:13It's like a surgery that pitchers would get after they, and they were better at pitching. It felt like that. Wait, so you had done all of this medicine before you did three mics? No, no, no. I did three mics blocks. Then I did the medicine stuff. A blocks was written before ayahuasca. It's sort of about what I was like before ayahuasca. I don't say that because when I was doing blocks, I didn't feel that way anymore. And then crazy good. The most recent one from two years ago. It's like that was the one where it's like that's the result of all this stuff. And Crazy Good, the theme is like it's kind of good to be a little crazy.

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