Before anyone considers self-experimenting with 5-MeO-DMT, remember that survivorship bias is a major factor in online psychedelic reporting right now. You should not make treatment decisions based on articles like this one recounting Mike Tyson's psychedelic trips as told to podcast host Joe Rogan for the sake of entertaining their audience.
Psychedelics are no doubt an interesting area of research and potentially very powerful agents in the context of comprehensive, professionally-guided treatment strategies. However, it's important for everyone to acknowledge that these powerful drugs are not guaranteed to produce unilaterally positive changes in all people who use them. Ordering some psilocybin, LSD, or 5-MeO-DMT off of the darknet and dosing yourself in your home is a completely different experience than the MAPS style treatment protocols, which involve many intense sessions of pre-trip preparation, active guidance by professionals during the trip, and multiple post-session therapy sessions for integration and monitoring. It's a mistake to assume you can replicate these procedures by yourself, alone, with questionable substances purchased on the darknet.
I've also noticed that internet comment sections are actively hostile to any negative experience reports from psychedelics. Whenever psychedelic research related topics hit the front page of Reddit, it's fascinating to read the variety of anecdotal experience reports in the comments. They range from glowing endorsements of life-changing positivity like this article, to horror stories of multi-year depressive or psychotic episodes that were difficult to recover from. However, the negative anecdotes tend to be so aggressively downvoted that you can't see them unless you switch to "Controversial" sorting some times. Worse yet, the negative anecdotes draw attacks and victim-blaming from people who don't want to believe that psychedelics can be harmful.
It's common to dismiss the negative reports as failures of "set and setting" or "latent pre-existing conditions", but the truth is that the outcomes of these substances are very unpredictable. Everyone assumes that their own experience will be positive, or that their preparation and research will save them, but that's not always the case.
I've even witnessed positive psychedelic outcomes turn dark as people become fixated on their tripping experiences. In psychedelic research the drugs are a part of the therapy. A means to an end. However, I've seen more than a few casual psychedelic users put too much weight into their hallucinations, or become fixated with the false belief that they are just one or two more trips away from a major breakthrough. Or they think enlightenment will come if they just double the dose next time. Or they become obsessed with trying the next research chemical or trendy mushroom strain. Or their first response to every difficult situation in life is to reach for psychedelic drugs.
Fascinating topic, but I urge everyone to please watch from a distance rather than self-experiment. If you have serious medical conditions, please engage with professionals for a monitored treatment strategy. If you absolutely must have your fix of psychedelic medicine, you can always engage with a ketamine treatment facility.
I share your concern, and agree that the glowing trip reports that tend to dominate the news and social media could use a serious reality check, as these substances can be abused and result in adverse consequences.
On the other hand, just because someone has a difficult experience it doesn't mean that on the whole the experience was detrimental. A lot depends on who the person is, what kind of help they have, and how they react to and integrate the experience.
This is much like reactions to difficult experiences in ordinary waking consciousness. One could go through an illness, for example, and come out of it stronger and with a greater value for the simple things in life you had taken for granted before. Or one could come out thinking "why me?", feeling sorry for yourself, feeling bitter at the world and life, or feeling persecuted.
In the MAPS therapeutic protocol that you mention (which is based on the work of Stanislav Grof), people are prepared for such difficult experiences, and if they happen are urged to stay with them instead of fightng them and trying to run away from them, to go deeper in to them, and afterwards are helped by trained therapists to deal with them integrate them.
All indications are that it is such an approach is what is responsible for the overwhelming positive outcomes of these studies, as opposed to the "acid casualties" that happen in informal, usually uninformed or even self-destructive casual use.
> On the other hand, just because someone has a difficult experience it doesn't mean that on the whole the experience was detrimental. A lot depends on who the person is, what kind of help they have, and how they react to and integrate the experience.
I was referring to those with long-lasting negative effects that persist for weeks, months, or even years after the trip.
These negative effects are frequently downplayed (or downvoted) in online discussions. They tend to be dismissed through victim blaming, such as suggesting that the person was unprepared, had latent psychiatric issues, or had improper set and setting.
The definition of "correct" preparation and set and setting seems to be defined as an impossibly high bar that few people actually follow. The impossibly high bar makes it easy to dismiss, ignore, or victim-blame the negative outcomes.
For example:
> All indications are that it is such an approach is what is responsible for the overwhelming positive outcomes of these studies, as opposed to the "acid casualties" that happen in informal, usually uninformed or even self-destructive casual use.
How many of the people reading this article or this comment section will be following the MAPS therapeutic protocol with trained professional supervision? Realistically, that number is zero. How many HN readers do you think are searching the darknet right now to buy some 5-MeO-DMT or Psilocybin for ad-hoc personal drug use under the belief that they are self-medicating? Probably quite a few.
It's widely recognized in the risk reduction community that education, drug testing, and legalization is the best approach.
Interested people are going to use these substances regardless, as the abject failure of the War on Drugs has shown, and in the internet age there's no effective way of keeping people from finding out about these substances. If anything, the information about them is going to get out way more effectively and faster than ever before.
We need to inform users of the risks of these substances along with their benefits, and safe ways to use them. If they then choose to ignore those ways, that's going to be their choice.
Right now there are ayahuasca circles and peyote ceremonies people could join, and underground psychedelic therapists they could go to.
Hopefully, when these substances are legalized there'll be more safe places where people could go and have their experience with trained, caring people.
Curious why you feel that the overlap between this audience and people receiving these treatments (or facilitators / therapists) would be zero?
I can state with complete certainty that trained, professional guides and clients in this kind of work are reading this article and this comment thread.
> I've also noticed that internet comment sections are actively hostile to any negative experience reports from psychedelics.
It's pretty obvious you are referring to Reddit ("sort by controversial"), just call it by name. Reddit is generally pretty hostile towards anyone who indulges in wrongthink.
Psychedelics are no doubt an interesting area of research and potentially very powerful agents in the context of comprehensive, professionally-guided treatment strategies. However, it's important for everyone to acknowledge that these powerful drugs are not guaranteed to produce unilaterally positive changes in all people who use them. Ordering some psilocybin, LSD, or 5-MeO-DMT off of the darknet and dosing yourself in your home is a completely different experience than the MAPS style treatment protocols, which involve many intense sessions of pre-trip preparation, active guidance by professionals during the trip, and multiple post-session therapy sessions for integration and monitoring. It's a mistake to assume you can replicate these procedures by yourself, alone, with questionable substances purchased on the darknet.
I've also noticed that internet comment sections are actively hostile to any negative experience reports from psychedelics. Whenever psychedelic research related topics hit the front page of Reddit, it's fascinating to read the variety of anecdotal experience reports in the comments. They range from glowing endorsements of life-changing positivity like this article, to horror stories of multi-year depressive or psychotic episodes that were difficult to recover from. However, the negative anecdotes tend to be so aggressively downvoted that you can't see them unless you switch to "Controversial" sorting some times. Worse yet, the negative anecdotes draw attacks and victim-blaming from people who don't want to believe that psychedelics can be harmful.
It's common to dismiss the negative reports as failures of "set and setting" or "latent pre-existing conditions", but the truth is that the outcomes of these substances are very unpredictable. Everyone assumes that their own experience will be positive, or that their preparation and research will save them, but that's not always the case.
I've even witnessed positive psychedelic outcomes turn dark as people become fixated on their tripping experiences. In psychedelic research the drugs are a part of the therapy. A means to an end. However, I've seen more than a few casual psychedelic users put too much weight into their hallucinations, or become fixated with the false belief that they are just one or two more trips away from a major breakthrough. Or they think enlightenment will come if they just double the dose next time. Or they become obsessed with trying the next research chemical or trendy mushroom strain. Or their first response to every difficult situation in life is to reach for psychedelic drugs.
Fascinating topic, but I urge everyone to please watch from a distance rather than self-experiment. If you have serious medical conditions, please engage with professionals for a monitored treatment strategy. If you absolutely must have your fix of psychedelic medicine, you can always engage with a ketamine treatment facility.