Pete Holmes Went to Ayahuasca, Neal Brennan Is Scared of His Dog

Neal Brennan opens the episode by announcing he is sick of explaining what his podcast is about. Twenty seconds later, he and Pete Holmes are debating whether peanut butter raises cholesterol. This is not a detour. This is the show. Two guys who have known each other for the better part of two decades, talking in the loose, associative way that only works when nobody is performing for each other, which is the whole joke, because they are absolutely performing for each other, just very comfortably.

Holmes is here ostensibly to talk about Brennan’s blocks, the framework at the center of his Netflix special. What actually happens is something closer to a two-hour theology seminar interrupted by a dog named Keith and an extremely personal cholesterol update. The conversation lands on ayahuasca, Rupert Spira, Byron Katie, the prodigal son, DMT-induced near-psychosis, and whether consciousness predates matter. It also lands on whether Keith the dog actually loves Brennan or is just following a sandwich. Both questions receive equal philosophical weight.

The Dog Is a Block

Brennan’s actual block, the one he built a comedy special around, is a tortured relationship with his dog. He is careful to note he does not hit the dog. The dog does not know they have a complicated relationship. The dog, apparently, is a huge fan of Brennan’s podcast. What Brennan cannot shake is the suspicion that the dog’s devotion is purely transactional, which opens directly into a larger suspicion about his mother, about love generally, about whether affection is ever not just a variation on following a turkey leg. It is genuinely funny and also genuinely sad, which is the only ratio that makes comedy worth listening to.

he calls into question the reality of Love is I’m like is all love just following a turkey A variation on following a turkey yeah and that breaks my heart

Holmes, to his credit, does not let Brennan off easy. When Brennan projects meaninglessness onto Keith’s daily routine, Holmes points out that Brennan is really judging himself. Brennan agrees immediately, which suggests he already knew and just needed someone to say it out loud. That dynamic, one guy articulating the thing the other guy is already circling, runs through the whole episode. It is what makes this format actually work when it works.

Ayahuasca, DMT, and the 0.0-Foot Journey

Holmes did ayahuasca ten days before recording. Brennan did 5-MeO-DMT, the toad venom variant, in November 2021, and spent two days in a state he describes as halfway between normal consciousness and something so disorienting he briefly considered that dying might be preferable to staying there. He did not go through with it, partly because he knew more of the disorientation was coming and decided to stay in this dimension. This is mentioned and then moved past at a pace that will make some listeners want to pause the episode.

I thought I might have to kill myself if this persists because it’s too disorienting and I didn’t partially because I knew I’d be going into more of it

Holmes’s own DMT trip sounds considerably more hospitable, a khaki sandstorm of everythingness that he loved, until his ego started using it to scare him afterward. Both of them have arrived at roughly the same conclusion through different chemical routes: the self is the screen, not the movie. Rupert Spira gets cited. So does Ramana Maharshi. So does Harry Potter, because both Brennan and Holmes have independently noticed that every myth from the Matrix to the Gospel of Luke is the same story about a person who forgot they were divine.

everyone’s good as a baby and then someone steals their toy and they go fuck everyone forever that’s right like that’s kind of like no everyone you learn a terrible lesson which is killer be killed which is not reality

The Movie Starts When the Baby Arrives

Holmes closes with the question of what the movie of his life looks like, and his answer is genuinely disarming. He thought the movie was the sitcom version: raised religious, married young, wife leaves at 28, becomes a comedian, finds himself. Turns out that was all table-setting. The movie, he says, starts with his daughter. He is embarrassed to say it. He says it anyway. Brennan does not mock him for it. For two guys whose whole professional identity is built on irony and distance, the lack of a smirk here lands harder than any joke in the episode.

the movie starts when my daughter is born it starts with me and Val and we and we have a fan I know right well I thought you meant it good it’s every day I’m with a running faucet of Love meaning it’s constantly changing and morphing

Holmes says he would be played by Jeff Bridges. Brennan agrees immediately. The episode ends there, which is the right call. Some things do not need a tag.