Lots of people have a lot of negative stuff to say, but my take is: if you do psychedelics, you need to do the work and you need a firm ground before that. We have research that it might help with PTSD, depression, etc. but it's not like you just take it and you're done. It's a powerful substance and with power comes responsibility. I like to think of it more as an enhancer as to what's inside your head anyways. If that's fucked already, how are psychedelics gonna help you?
You're right. There are a lot of misconceptions because the majority of people has never tried strong psychedelic drugs like psilocybin or LSD, so their information is based entirely on hearsay. Both in the negative sense ("you can permanently 'fry' your brain", "you'll jump out of the window", etc), as well as positive myths like that it's going to solve all your mental issues.
I'm not fully sure regarding the last sentence though. The important thing to know for those who have never experienced it and who have issues that could come out during the trip is that you need to care A LOT about set and setting. You should have an experienced person whom you fully trust and who can guide you through the experience. Don't do it on your own when you're in a bad state, that's pretty much the worst way to take psychedelics and basically asking for the trip to go wrong. And you'll want to avoid strangers as well unless you're super extroverted maybe.
Also, and that's my personal take, don't sign up to questionable retreats or scientific studies/therapies conducted by self-proclaimed experts who have never taken it themselves. Just because someone has a degree in psychology - a questionable science to begin with when you look at all the failed attempts to replicate the findings - it doesn't mean they understand how it feels to be on a psychedelic trip.
If you have mental health issues and you try to self medicate with psychedelics just know you’re playing with fire. I’ve had one positive-ish and three negative-ish ones myself. I get a lot of anxiety and mania for some reason on the second half which tends to make me kind of spiral and there’s sometimes not much to grab onto when you’re deep in it. If you really must do it alone , having something like a benzo on hand can help if things go off the rails.
Psychedelics weaken your emotional associations. Which can be helpful and/or unhelpful.
It's not a matter of more work.
Whatever feeling you had about this chair has changed. It use to represent a memory or a feeling from childhood. That's changed or is gone for better or worse.
That's how to perceive how it works.
If you are 'fucked' because you can't move on it will help. If you feel a lack of connections to things/people it could help form new ones or reduce what you currently have.
Removing emotional memories can be scary. Removing PTSD memories can be freeing.
In the past, a lot fewer people lived until they were “old”.
So, the deleterious effects of trauma emotions “mattered less”. If you can never sleep through the night without waking up screaming, that is a bad effect. But if you only have a year or two of lifespan left, then you experience less “penalty” than if you had lots of years left.
Now, we ship boys off to war at 18, or even younger. They get PTSD in war, and then live 50+ years afterwards with the bad effects.
I walked in psychedellics a bit fucked, though id been doing the work to get better. I was simply at an impasse with no way forward. For me, psychedellics shook things up in a way that allowed for a level of introspection and wrangling of the self the allowed for meaningful change. For example, i went from hopeless alcoholic with little to no positive outlook in life to having a healthy relationship with alcohol (and other substances) meaning general abstainence but socially acceptable levels of partaking where appropriate.
This is of course not everyones story, many i know who took similar substances ended up in much worse positions.Some had even been doing the work to get better also. For the time being I think theres an element of luck, but i hope we figure out how to remove the luck component and make it a science.
The way I'd explain it Is that whatever loss function the mind uses to optimize the personality was stuck in a poor local optima and psychedellics knocked that marble right loose. There was a time i was a bit 'lost' in it all but i was able to get back on track in a reasonable timeframe and through the change in perspectove and way of thinking kept improving well past were id gotten to prior to that.
Despite what positive things i have to say about it, i wouldnt recommend it, unless it truly is your last option. i spent years with psychologists and paychiatrists prior to that. Ive seen many go down the path of the illicit and not get better but much much worse, and more that went down professional help based pathways who got better more consistently, and got worse far more rarely.
There's a good documentary about the John Hopkins research on treating drug resistant depression with psilocybin which unfortunately isn't available any more via the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w7bq
From my limited personal experience and having attended various psychedelic talks and integration workshops etc., set, setting and (post) support are all really key to help turn what can be a potentially life changing/affirming/challenging event into a beneficial one.
No matter how good one's ground is, lots of LSD in a city apartment will likely drive you crazy.
I never have had a bad trip, except for that time I took 800 mu-g GG in my tiny apartment. I became insanely restless, waking up 12 hours later trying to open the window to get to more natural environment. My lights were dropped on the floor, as well as plenty of water, broken electronics and ruined papers.
Since then I've learned to use music and earplugs; keep the windows open; have high CRI bulbs; keep lots of plants; and to never hesistate going to an ice shower when feeling like a confused and mentally stressed ape.
The level of control one wants, I believe, is roughly the same as beating a nightmare disorder with lucid dreaming. One ALSO must have familiarity with "foundations" of the world, or else they will end up doing dumb stuff with dumb beliefs. By foundations I mean sort of at least grasping that it's all arbitary and then building what you want on That.
It's interesting that brain hypersynchronicity is a known source of epileptic seizures (among other things). This potentially could be a treatment for this specific problem.
Anecdotal, but I've tripped with two people who showed seizure like symptoms that they never had before or since.
Couldn't find any data at the time. Tried to get them to submit experience reports on erowid so that there would be some data out there, but they didn't want to put anything about it in writing.
Yeah, I grew them. I didn't sequence them for identification, but they were phenotypically P. Cubensis, as advertised on the spore syringe.
In neither case was it a big deal in the long run (not exactly great vibes in the short term though). I used to be a pretty enthusiastic user, so "just two times" is indeed uncommon.
Hopefully with the recent trend of decriminalization we can get together some respected data about this sort of thing. I still believe that psilocybin has been a net positive thing for most people who have tried it (including these two cases).
Even if the seizure thing were confirmed, all the conventional wisdom re: tripping remains unchanged. Be in a safe place with trusted people, consider a trip sitter, etc. On the other hand, I think having the data might help drive some better decisions: Situations you might avoid (e.g. swimming), etc.
A tangential anecdote... I took a Pfizer COVID booster vaccine and saw my heart rate go up to resting above 100 on my calorie tracker watch. I talked with my doctor about this. He said he stayed away from the COVID boosters because they weren't a good balance of risk vs safety. I asked him whether high resting heart rates were a side effect. He said, no, there's no data for that, but there is data that it has an impact on heart rates.
I said, if there's no data, that means the vaccine isn't the source? He said, no, there's no data because I didn't report it.
Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics, medical law and media studies, that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatments, alternative treatments, the patient's role in treatment, and their right to refuse treatment. In most systems, healthcare providers have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that a patient's consent is informed. This principle applies more broadly than healthcare intervention, for example to conduct research and to disclose a person's medical information.
The booster shots are not mandatory in most countries. Your doctor should have informed you of the benefits and side effects of the booster shots, so there's no point in commenting on it here.
My brother has this permanently, though whether a delayed reaction to the booster or from when he got COVID itself (a relatively mild case) not long after, there's no way to know.
It has been a major detriment to his day to day life though. Any physically involved hobbies are impossible; just walking up a flight or two of stairs now leaves him completely winded for several minutes, as his heart rate also takes longer to come back to resting than before.
He's seen all the specialists. I think they ultimately came down on neurological damage, and tried a battery of drugs until they found some that slightly mitigated the problem. Last we talked about it, though, it hasn't been fully resolved.
Remember when the authorities pulled the JnJ vaccine due to adverse events after it was administered to millions of people? It seems some caution was warranted, no?
I'm being asked on a regular basis by various health practitioners (pretty much on every visit) if I ever had uneven or elevated heart rate after my covid shots (I had), then they take note which specific vaccine brand I had. So - adjust your priors ;-)
I can't think of anything in the world I would enjoy doing less than completing "a simple auditory–visual matching task" while in an MRI scanner on shrooms.
The set and settings researchers typically use for usual psych studies are going to bias psychedelic results so much. Think that building you hated in undergrad's crusty unlit cinderblock basement with no windows but coated in cameras and microphones. Its so dystopian, you are literally a caged rat. I don't think you can perform this research in good faith without having experienced a proper trip yourself. It's just impossible to put into words much less gleam any actual understanding from written description of it.
Science needs more Albert Hoffman's who are willing to couple their knowledge with this experience without fear of being fired from IRB violation and ostracized by the scientific community. Otherwise we will forever be grasping in the dark with these drugs.
I've never had a good trip indoors. My brain has a knack for staying grounded by familiar settings, so I hardly even experience the trip. Put me outdoors in the dark and my brain can be stimulated by natural sounds which are not nearly as predictable as those I find indoors. I think it has to do with processing stimuli that I can't instantly attribute to something I know very well. I am also normally hypervigilant, which may come into play since I think familiar settings inhibit my ability to fall under the effects of intoxication somewhat. I am also much more likely to try and sleep off any overwhelming feelings if I'm in the aafety/comfort of a house vs the middle of the forest. Setting doesn't necessarily mean the 'safest' space for you since my own home negatively effects the overall experience.
Having someone who is experienced, sober and willing to guide you for hours (lots of trust) is crucial since the opti.al setting may not be the safest setting.
TL;DR - I struggle to trip or even enjoy a trip indoors. I have always felt shrooms work best when you let them help you attune to nature. Listening to the wind, trees, insects, etc... it's like washing your eyeballs with kittens.
Very good points. My understanding from talking to a research assistant, the research groups doing lsd/mdma/psilocybin studies based in Basel and Zürich are led by drug experienced researchers.
I agree, they can already be mentally uncomfortable if you don't like enclosed spaces. Perhaps there's some kind of psychotherapeutic techniques used prior to getting in the MRI during the come up period, to kind of boost positive emotion about the whole process.
Haha I wouldn't. People have made such a big deal out of this drug requiring set and setting but I've swum in the ocean, played soccer, watched movies and TV, played board games and all with great fun. Indoors and outdoors. It's fantastic.
Agreed. Being in an MRI sounds like you are in the middle of a warzone. With constant sounds that sounds somewhat like gunshots. That would be pretty terrifying on shrooms.
You also cannot move or else the resultant images will be blurry.
I have a pinched nerve in my back/shoulder that becomes very aggravated when laying flat on my back. It took 45 mins to do the MRI and we managed to not have to do any re-takes. I was so uncomfortable from eating the pain that I threw up as soon as I exited the machine. I simply couldn't imagine someone who is tripping trying to sit still that long (ignoring the auditory/spacial effects all together).
This concerns Functional Connectivity[0], which is basically a measure of how temporally correlated regions are; those that fire in sync or in a strongly correlated pattern are functionally connected.
Essentially, the TL;DR of this study is that psilocybin's 5-HT2A agonism seems to reduce synchronized FC activity not just in neurons but the whole brain: psilocybin makes parts of the brain overall that otherwise work together (in a time-correlated sense) stop displaying time-correlation. These results were seen most in the Default Mode[1] network, which is more or less the brain system in operation when you are inside your head — daydreaming, thinking, remembering, etc. — as opposed to processing visual cues or observing the physical world.
I think the fact that nobody knows how to deal with negative correlations in functional connectivity takes away from the validity of the whole concept. People literally throw out negatively correlated voxels/ROI's. This, on top of the fact that functional connectivity is only related to physical connectivity in the abstract. (it's about the correlated time series activity in pixels over time, and isn't bound by any cellular connectivity). I just struggle to discern any meaning from the concept.
I second the question below. The phase, magnitude, and polarity are all used. Yes, sure, you can focus on sub-systems with positive correlation under the presumption that joint increases in signal signify joint increases in O2 use and neuronal activity. Functional connectivity is functional more relevant than mere axonal connectivity. Only a small fraction of an axonal arbor — its collection of presynaptic terminals—-is functionally and reliably coupled to postsynaptic targets.
It’s commonly done in fMRI studies and I always got the impression it was less about not being able to understand negative relationships (e.g., it’s well understood that things like the default mode network is inversely related to active processing) and it’s more about not being clear how to use negative values as edge weights in graph theoretic analysis of networks
Yeah, this is super interesting. The obvious follow up for me is what implication this desynchronization has on cognition. People who have done a lot of psilocybin tend to be quite a bit 'different' at least in my experience—they tend to be more reserved, maybe a bit more thoughtful, slower, introspective, etc.
But what causes this change in personality? People who have done a lot of psilocybin seem to be a lot less worried, a lot less neurotic, and a lot less wrapped up in the ego than those who haven't. After all, who wants to be wrapped up and ruminating based on the content of their thoughts? I've always thought of this behavior by those who have used psilocybin to be a feature, not a bug—as if they're enlightened.
But if, say, this newfound personality is the result of a loss in functional connectivity—what does that tell us about how other markers of cognitive function have changed? Is strong FC a prerequisite for strong executive function or other measures of intelligence? The paper seems to suggest that the changes in FC are associated with the default mode network and maybe not other states of brain focus.
But will a macro dose of psilocybin, say—make someone better at their job? Maybe we don't know yet, and maybe there won't be a clear answer; there is a lot of heterogeneity in the way people think, and how they exploit their own cognitive abilities to provide value in the world—so maybe a loss in FC will mean different things to different individauls. But given the suggestion from this paper that the effects of psilocybin may be somewhat permanent, the answer to this question will be a very useful for those looking to benefit from this therapeutic.
The study uses cool methods but they are still at very crude global level and the temporal resolution is poor. Functional synchrony (or para-synchrony) is more of an initial pointer to the much faster synaptic processing we really would love to understand better. the ither limit is that fMRI studies focus on relatively large chunks of cortex, but lots of critical changes are sub-cortical. I’d love to see a focus on thalamo-cortico and cortico-thalamic modulation. I suspect these connections are just as important as cortico-cortical and cortico-hippocampal connections.
Finally, there will be a great deal of individual differences. One story will not fit all of us.
Feedback in an anlog signalling system producing delays, reflections, geometric and clipped artifacts is something anyone who has used a guitar effects pedal is familiar with. I have a surprising number of old comments on this site about how hallucinogens just impair signalling and the results are geometric for the same reasons. This article says it impairs the equivalent to the CLK signal, which sounds just about right.
Don't be disappointed about it not being another spiritual dimension, they discovered we literally have effects pedals for our brains. This is the coolest thing ever. We could probably classify hallucinogenic artifacts by chorus, delay, flange, harmonics...
This is an interesting combination with this post from yesterday (Study reveals how anesthesia drug propofol induces unconsciousness): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40981421
Their conclusion in that paper is that Propofol derails the brain’s normal balance between stability and excitability, which induces unconsciousness.
incredibly powerful drug. we should be training a legion of mystics using psilocybin instead of criminalizing it and obfuscating the implications of its use
it means regimented deep psychedelic experiences with focus on particular skills whether it be programming, music, art, writing, or any particular focus area. the results to be discussed, studied, understood, appreciated. almost like a college of psychedelics.
Project MKUltra was an illegal human experiments program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken people and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
[...]
The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT and DMT on people
PSA: My buddy shot himself in the head while we were on shrooms in our twenties. He thought he meant God, took a shower picked up a gun and shot himself in the head.
While I've had trips since then and do get benefits from those experiences. People without experience should be careful, especially if you have a history of mental illness. He did have a history to some degree but not overtly.
Similar thing. My good friend and early college roommate took his own life with a gun after having a bad trip. I wasn’t there for it, but the way he described it he felt ridiculed and deserted by his old high school friends during the trip. He was left alone to deal with these feelings.
His mood post trip became increasingly abysmal. He became highly paranoid, and started questioning the loyalty of the people close to him like his family. I now know that this was a sign of possible schizophrenia. I now know that dementia runs in his family. He started creating simplistic yet disturbing paintings. I wish I still had them.
This happened in March of 2020, COVID had just become a national concern. I was dating long distance at the time and she wanted me to come up before the airports closed down. Sometimes I regret going. I wish he had gone somewhere so he wasn’t alone. He ended up shooting himself with his grandfathers rifle.
I guess the lesson here is be cautious with drugs that can accelerate mental illnesses if you have a family history of them. Check up on your friends that have bad trips and seem kinda off.
In my life I met two people who survived botched suicide attempts without using firearms. When someone decides to do it, they will try, and there are things worse than dying.
To have been stopped by a minor hurdle one must necessarily have started. It seems like you mean to disagree with the idea that "there are things worse than dying" and I expect they meant being maimed can be thought of as worse than being successful, due to the long-term personal consequences.
I cannot believe you actually wrote that. With your comment it seems like you're saying that it's pointless to hide the guns ie not keep them close. But then you also said that those two people survived. Have you heard the saying: Opportunity makes a thief.
It's similar here. Except that it's not a theft, it's a suicide.
I wouldn't dare to write what you wrote, knowing that someone might read it and take the cue to _not_ do any precautions before their trip.
Yes, when I had a bad concussion from a car rollover, I had bouts of suicidal thought. I got rid of my double edge razor blades and kept my knives away. As my brain healed so did my mind. Better not to have terminal condition tools around if you don't need them.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m disappointed that I didn’t include this in the original comment because it was definitely in the back of my mind. As far as I know roughly 2/3rds of the firearm deaths in the US are suicides.
If anything this event further radicalized me into the gun control argument. I have shot a few and they’re fun and all, but at the end of the day it’s impossible to detach the form from the function. They are killing machines. Something as powerful as a firearm should absolutely have a regular psychiatric evaluation attached to it if you insist on owning one.
Part of the lesson of this story is the danger of having a gun in the home at all. He could have been sober and depressed and did the same just as easily thanks to having access to a gun. There's a lot of statistical evidence for how dangerous situations like depression or domestic violence can become once a gun is nearby.
Your first statement is not supported by the second. Yes, in a DV situation or a situation where someone has severe mental illness, it's probably not a good idea to have easy access to a firearm.
But if you actually look at the numbers, the average firearm is not used in self-defense, nor is it used to endanger a family member. The vast majority just . . . sit there. They're machines which must be used respectfully and responsibly, not magic evil talismans.
> go figure the plot you have to live after an event of this type
I am not saying these aren't issues, but that the risk is often overstated.
Also, I think there are plenty of other things that are greater risks than the likelihood of gun violence toward oneself or others that impact lifetime well-being for individuals on a socioeconomic scale, especially in schools.
So what? More likely than not that’s the type of gun the person we’re discussing used.
> and kind of what would be expected?
Again, what’s your point? Because it’s expected we shouldn’t discuss it or do anything about it? Let’s bring back lead paint while we’re at it; I mean, it’s expected that it causes brain damage.
> "We need to stop this bad thing that rarely happens! Only when it happens even less than hardly ever will we all be safe!"
It happens in the US significantly more than in other countries. The US is literally at the top of the list, to the surprise of no one. So yes, making it happen fewer times, perhaps by learning from other nations which have demonstrated it’s possible, is a worthwhile goal.
The article states specifically that people who commit suicide with a gun are more likely to do so if they own a handgun. IMO, that follows from the mechanics of the scenario.
It is easier to point a handgun at yourself and pull the trigger than it is to do so with a long gun. So, IMO, it is common sense that it is more likely that someone committing suicide by firearm chooses to do so with a handgun over a long gun, and they are more likely to do that if they own a handgun already.
However, it isn't like a random person who owns a gun is significantly more likely to complete a suicide attempt just because they own a gun. Yet, a person who is already at risk of suicide might have an increased risk if they own guns.
That being said, as a random individual, the risk of completed suicide over a lifetime is incredibly low, and that risk is even lower for suicide by any firearm.
> Let’s bring back lead paint while we’re at it; I mean, it’s expected that it causes brain damage.
I don't see this as being analogous to what I am saying. Maybe I am missing something.
> if you actually look at the numbers, the average firearm is not used in self-defense
Those aren't really the numbers you'd want to look at, right? If you have a community with 1000 firearms and 499 of them end up being used in a shooting you could still assert that "most firearms are never used".
I think what you'd care about in assessing risk is: what is the likelihood of violent injury and/or death in household with firearms vs households without? Controlled for other relevant factors?
> They're machines which must be used [...] not magic evil talismans
I feel like there's a straw man in there. No one is worried about guns sitting around literally unused, and I don't think anyone cares too much about the used/unused ratio. Obviously the thing people are worried about is how they are used when they are used.
Like the other child comments I don’t agree with the presupposition that guns are an entity that somehow incites people to commit violent (Which is what you are implying).
For example most people have access to cars, statistically much more dangerous than guns, and no one seems to imply that having a car around incites people to violence. People who are mentally ill and dangerous could as easily use any array of common tools or methods to commit acts which are dangerous to themselves and others. That doesn’t make it the tool’s fault.
And you know this based on what? To me it seems the opposite is true. If you have the means, it's more likely you'll do something. If it's too complicated, you might just give up, or not even have a thought that you could do something like that. Opportunity makes a thief.
Anecdotal evidence: I was close to suicide a couple of times in my life, and believe I would have done it if I had had a weapon just lying around or within easy access. Thankfully I did not. (Non-US, access to guns highly restricted.)
Thanks for that PSA. And here's to your lost friend!
I have a lost one too, but due to a different cause. He took hard drugs he was dealing to pay off a house after a legislative decision basically eliminated his well paying job. We grew up very much do what it fucking takes kind of people. And we were tested in life more than once. I still draw from that time today, sometimes remembering and finding that which will get me through. I miss him terribly.
Had he not used, he would have made it! We talked about that, and he used "a little" to know better what he was dealing. Now we all make choices and he made his. At the time, financially, it was understandable, though I would have chosen differently myself.
Anyhow... hard lessons!
Lost him in my very early 30's and I think of him regularly, as I am sure you do yours. What got him was the loss of autonomous breathing! Yes, right out of Greek mythos, he suddenly had to breathe consciously after a particularly nasty interaction with some of the product and his physiology.
It truly was a curse. Bit by bit, he lost the fight. Was cruel and hard to watch.
Sidebar: I am angered and lament the timing because I very strongly feel some form of electrical stimulation could have helped. I lacked means at the time. We both really wanted to try. Doctors had nothing.
End sidebar.
These drugs have awesome potential, but they also come with considerably greater risks than many of us know too.
Good PSA. Seconded.
Be careful peeps. We think we understand. Fact is we just don't yet.
And that will improve with proper study using the scientific method.
If you ask me, cutting those risks is the single most powerful argument for permitting ongoing research and study of the powerful things left for us in Mother Natures kitchen.
> And that will improve with proper study using the scientific method.
How about just having supervised sites with trained trip sitters so that people don’t have the ability (under the influence) to do irreversible things? Perhaps in a therapist’s/doctor’s office.
People discover powerful drug
-> Powerful drug causes negative reactions in some people
-> Drug is banned and knowledge is lost
-> People discover powerful drug.
Pharma is responsible for suppressing knowledge and proper medical treatments. They're letting people die so the fear sets their patented drugs in stone. It has worked very well for them.
There is a plethora of information on the net on how to start safely, if at all, and why most people should not use psychedelics at all. Set and setting are just as important as the dosage.
Everyone who has tripped hard and come out unscathed can consider themselves lucky to have such a strong constitution. I am a firm believer in that psychdelics are wonderful, but powerful. And not everyone can handle the experience. At one end might be a slightly anxious trip, but at the other end is a complete breakdown of your reality.
Thanks for sharing. Not sure if the guidance to do shrooms in an appropriate setting and with an appropriate mindset ("set and setting") would have helped, but certainly that guidance is no joke!
And we should absolutely continue research to learn more about the adverse effects. Obviously they help a lot of people, but must be done with care and seem not to be helpful for every person. We must learn more about these conditions.
Whenever I read about shroom usage in ancient times, it almost always has some type of guidance and ceremony associated with it.
The laws have turned it into something taboo and then people often start consuming psychedelics in a weird and suspicious way to begin with...because it's not legal potentially leading to more and more bad trips.
Meditation is similar, often seemed to be associated with guidance from someone who know how to do it and had experience dealing with some of the potential negatives associated with it. I just read a book by Mingyur Rinpoche and I ended up having a severe existential crisis, that book shocked my being to it's core at the time.
I agree, we’ve forced consumption to the margins which encourages unsafe use.
California is looking at legalizing psychedelic therapy without full legalization which is an interesting approach. I think ultimately adults should be allowed to make their own choices, as I’ve had very meaningful trips in a friends living room for a few dollars and a fully regulated therapeutic setting will probably cost $1000 (based on costs in Oregon). But maybe a therapy-first based approach will help underscore the need for appropriate ritual around these materials. Ultimately though adults are allowed to take risks with alcohol and other substances, and I think we should be free to do so with psychedelics too.
The Joy of Living by Mingyur Rinpoche. I was like "what's this nice innocent book, how wonderful sounding"...
It was a great book, but the way I thought about myself was let's say, very incompatible with the Buddhist ideas about self. The words I read in that book were undeniably true, and it shocked me.
A user named observationist made a response to this post, but they responded to a troll, whose comment was nuked which removed their very valuable comment (I was responding to them at the time so I happened to have both in cache).
Around 1% of people have schizophrenia. This holds over a lifetime - there's a structural, unavoidable component to the person's neural wiring or physiology that will result in a schizophrenic break. Prior to the break, they may seem more or less normal, but after, they will experience deficits in cognition and perception, and may have significant barriers to living a normal life.
Schizophrenics, as a rule, will have a psychotic break before they turn 45. Psychoactive substances, and high doses of psychedelics, will trigger breaks from reality earlier than they might otherwise happen. Stress, caffeine, trauma, or significant excitement can also be triggers, but psychedelic drug trips are a reliable trigger, and in conjunction with other effects, can spiral a "bad trip" into a much worse trauma.
Another 3 to 4% of the population have significant mental disorders, ranging from those we know, to those we can observe but don't have a good diagnostic criteria for. In these cases, it can be very detrimental to use psychoactive substances generally, and psychedelics in particular.
It's crucial to visit with a doctor to rule out the likelihood that you're in the roughly one in twenty people that might have a significant negative reaction to psychedelics. Some of the people in that camp might be safe from harm later in life. I know a person with significant family history of schizophrenia and earlier life indicators he was at risk, who then started using mushrooms in his 50s and seems very stable. He talked things over with his doctors before deciding to take the risk - apparently after you turn 45 it's incredibly rare, even with significant trauma and stressors, for schizophrenic breaks to occur, so if that's your main threat, it might be safe to engage in psychedelics when you're older.
If you're not in the high risk camp, you should still have at least one frank discussion with your doctor about pitfalls, and do a metric ton of personal research about any substance you intend to use. It can be a profound and wonderful departure from the norm, or a mildly unpleasant experience, or a stressful confrontation with your inner demons, depending on the dose and preparation.
my response:
Thank you for this. I thought this was a very informative comment; I am worried about schizophrenia as a disease that might impact my kids. I wanted to ask you for more information, but that is a burden, so I asked ChatGPT instead so at least you wouldn't have to go find links. If you have Other reading besides what is below I would be happy to hear about it.
Here is it's response from ChatGPT (Claude couldn't provide links). My contribution is that I checked the links and skimmed them to see if they supported the statement. They are repetitive (there are only 7 articles linked actually), but they generally support your comment. Of note the PLOS article does not support your comment, and it seems that it doesn't support what ChatGPT says (maybe I misunderstood when skimming it). The stuff in parens below (Looks Like This), was a link in ChatGPT, but the links didn't copy-paste, so I'm going to put all the articles at the top here:
The comment you saw online contains some accurate points but also could benefit from additional context and nuance based on available research.
1. Prevalence and Risk Factors of Schizophrenia:
- The lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia is approximately 0.3% to 0.7% globally, which supports the 1% figure as an upper bound (Nature) (BioMed Central) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
- Schizophrenia typically emerges in late adolescence to early thirties, with men often experiencing onset earlier than women (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
- Factors such as genetic predisposition, prenatal exposures, and psychosocial stressors contribute to the risk of developing schizophrenia (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
2. Triggers for Psychotic Breaks:
- The statement that high doses of psychedelics can trigger psychotic breaks in predisposed individuals is supported by evidence. Drug-induced psychosis, particularly from hallucinogens and cannabis, can lead to schizophrenia in some cases (Psychiatric Times) .
- Other triggers include stress, trauma, and significant life changes, which can exacerbate underlying vulnerabilities (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
3. Impact of Psychedelics on Mental Health:
- Psychedelics can pose significant risks for individuals with a family history of schizophrenia or other major mental health disorders. It is crucial for these individuals to consult healthcare professionals before considering psychedelic use (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
- Research has shown that about 25% of those with substance-induced psychosis may transition to schizophrenia, with the type of substance being a significant predictor of this transition (Psychiatric Times) .
4. General Mental Health Considerations:
- Around 3-4% of the population may experience significant mental disorders other than schizophrenia. For these individuals, the use of psychoactive substances, including psychedelics, can be particularly detrimental (PLOS) . [NOTE: This seems to be an error from ChatGPT, this PLOS article doesn't seem to support this conclusion. As I haven't done personal work on this yet, I don't know whether the statement is supported by other research.]
- Mental health evaluation and professional consultation are recommended before the use of psychedelics to identify potential risks and ensure safety (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
5. Later-Life Considerations:
- The risk of new-onset schizophrenia after the age of 45 is indeed rare, which suggests that older individuals may have a lower risk of experiencing a first psychotic episode triggered by psychedelics (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
For further reading and to deepen your understanding, you may refer to sources like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the World Health Organization (WHO), and recent research studies on the global burden and risk factors of schizophrenia (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) (Nature) . Additionally, the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) provides detailed information on the safety and risks associated with psychedelic use (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
Isn't asking an LLM to find links that support an assertion equivalent to cherry picking sources? Also, just from a quick scan of some of these, it is apparent that the citations are not completely accurate.
IMO, this is kind of asymmetric lazy commenting that wastes other peoples' time. If you want to share something, just link to a article, and leave the LLM bullshit out of it.
I appreciate the pushback on this process, it made me think.
I actually asked the LLM for supporting or refuting sources. I didn’t think I was cherry picking. Looking at its response… maybe CharGPT didn’t pick up on the “refuting” detail, or maybe observationist was correct. So maybe next time a prompt “find supporting” and another prompt “find refuting” would be useful to ensure coverage of both sides.
My value add in the human+AI workflow was to check the links. They seem high quality and directly applicable to statements made. I took pressure off observationist to go find directly applicable links (and I saved time by not googling for each separate fact). That being said, I probably didn’t need to requote ChatGPT in full. I liked the full answer because it assured me ChatGPT was responding on each claim but the important thing was the links. So, more efficiency was possible in my yc comment.
> Across studies that use household-based survey samples, clinical diagnostic interviews, and medical records, estimates of the prevalence of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders in the U.S. range between 0.25% and 0.64%
Kessler RC, Birnbaum H, Demler O, Falloon IR, Gagnon E, Guyer M, Howes MJ, Kendler KS, Shi L, Walters E, Wu EQ. The prevalence and correlates of nonaffective psychosis in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). Biol Psychiatry. 2005 Oct 15;58(8):668-76. PMID: 16023620
Wu EQ, Shi L, Birnbaum H, Hudson T, Kessler R. Annual prevalence of diagnosed schizophrenia in the USA: a claims data analysis approach. Psychol Med. 2006 Nov;36(11):1535-40. PMID: 16907994
Desai, PR, Lawson, KA, Barner, JC, Rascati, KL. Estimating the direct and indirect costs for community-dwelling patients with schizophrenia. Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, 2013 Jul;4(4):187-194. doi/10.1111/jphs.12027/epdf
Then you should never step in a vehicle again for the rest of your life, after all, the odds of the average American dying in a vehicle accident every year is 1 in 5000[1]. That doesn't take into account drivers/non-drivers, but I think it's reasonable to assume drivers are at higher risk than pedestrians considering pedestrians make up only a small portion of vehicle-related fatalities [2][3].
I do wonder what the actual odds are of getting injured by psilocybin though.
This is a false equivalency. Evaluating risks to some individuals reaction based on incomparable research material is irrational and irrelevant. Consider, mathematically, there are infinities that are not the same as other infinities.
Most people who are licensed to drive are unlikely to have a negative reaction from the act of driving for 2 hours under controlled conditions. The same can not be said (at all) about use of mind altering substances, given the mind cannot necessarily be controlled. Set and setting.
I don't think it's entirely incomparable. You can't control the other drivers on the road either.
Also, you can control your own dose. I've never heard of anyone encountering any long term side effects from trying a single low dose of psilocybin. Especially since some studies show that very low doses aren't any different than placebo.
Then again most people don't start with a very low dose and ramp up slowly because people are human and do dumb things.
There are just a lot of similar risks like these in life. Camp in the wrong place for example and you might lose the ability to eat red meat [1].
I think it's irresponsible to tell people to take this or that drug since we still don't have good numbers on the risks. But I also think telling people to completely abstain is dumb, and the government trying to enforce complete abstinence even more dumb.
Mushrooms have saved more people than they have harmed, I guarantee you. I believe you have a very warped or misguided understanding of what exactly psilocybin is and I'd encourage you to learn.
Around 1% of people have schizophrenia. This holds over a lifetime - there's a structural, unavoidable component to the person's neural wiring or physiology that will result in a schizophrenic break. Prior to the break, they may seem more or less normal, but after, they will experience deficits in cognition and perception, and may have significant barriers to living a normal life.
Schizophrenics, as a rule, will have a psychotic break before they turn 45. Psychoactive substances, and high doses of psychedelics, will trigger breaks from reality earlier than they might otherwise happen. Stress, caffeine, trauma, or significant excitement can also be triggers, but psychedelic drug trips are a reliable trigger, and in conjunction with other effects, can spiral a "bad trip" into a much worse trauma.
Another 3 to 4% of the population have significant mental disorders, ranging from those we know, to those we can observe but don't have a good diagnostic criteria for. In these cases, it can be very detrimental to use psychoactive substances generally, and psychedelics in particular.
It's crucial to visit with a doctor to rule out the likelihood that you're in the roughly one in twenty people that might have a significant negative reaction to psychedelics. Some of the people in that camp might be safe from harm later in life. I know a person with significant family history of schizophrenia and earlier life indicators he was at risk, who then started using mushrooms in his 50s and seems very stable. He talked things over with his doctors before deciding to take the risk - apparently after you turn 45 it's incredibly rare, even with significant trauma and stressors, for schizophrenic breaks to occur, so if that's your main threat, it might be safe to engage in psychedelics when you're older.
If you're not in the high risk camp, you should still have at least one frank discussion with your doctor about pitfalls, and do a metric ton of personal research about any substance you intend to use. It can be a profound and wonderful departure from the norm, or a mildly unpleasant experience, or a stressful confrontation with your inner demons, depending on the dose and preparation.
> In all the studies included in our review, we identified 11 deaths presumed to be completed suicides that can be fairly confidently linked to classic psychedelic use in a non-clinical context (four jumping from a height [of which one of these individuals was also intoxicated on alcohol], one walking into traffic [unclear intent], one drowning [alone on the beach with unclear intent], two self-stabbing with a sharp object or knife, and three with unclear methods). This supports the notion that noncontrolled environments where individuals are by themselves and have access to means for suicide, such as heights with no barriers and objects that can lead to hanging or self-stabbing, are likely unsafe contexts for psychedelic use, especially among individuals presenting with prior suicide risk. There is much evidence suggesting that restricting access to lethal means is a key method for suicide prevention in general, and it stands to reason that for those using psychedelic substances in non-clinical settings, the pre-emptive restriction of lethal means could help reduce the risk of suicide.
I would extend this and suggest that anyone using these should have someone or multiple people who can be sure that all dangerous things are out of reach, including cars.
I've witnessed heavily drunk people abuse microwaves, and people deep in chat addiction catch a kitchen on fire boiling water.
I've heard many people believe they can fly and other stories, but it's not just hallucinogens that convince people the really dangerous thing they are about to do it totally fine.. but I would suggest that with the use of such removing all possible danger things and having shifts of responsible people in the vicinity maybe should be required.
This percentage is much smaller in other countries, so actually it is... if you don't live in the USA, which is a large majority of the world's population.
Many countries in Europe have tons of older hunting guns, on top of newish guns for... personal protection? Sport? Or whatever reason people feel the need to have them.
Tens of millions as per wikipedia [1]. Also check other countries and continents. A very valid argument.
In most European countries you have to store the firearm in a locked safe, often with the bolt removed or the weapon disassembled and - quite often - with the ammunition stored separately in another locked container/safe.
It’s a lot more “steps to take” to commit suicide than “take the weapon from your nightstand and shoot yourself”, given you have to unlock usually more than one safe/lockbox.
I assume that's not any of the concealed carry countries as that would completely defeat the point of having the gun. Definitely not the case where I live.
The countries allowing CC are - unfortunately - in the minority in Europe.
Among the ones that do allow CC, most of them that’s a special permit that seems to have an exception to the storage requirements for personal protection.
Personally I wish more of Europe would emulate the Czech Republic in this matter…
And that's the problem. It's not particularly useful to write it off, particularly absurd that you do so on the grounds that it's an extremely prevalent problem.
Thank you for this. I thought this was a very informative comment; I am worried about schizophrenia as a disease that might impact my kids. I wanted to ask you for more information, but that is a burden, so I asked ChatGPT instead so at least you wouldn't have to go find links. If you have Other reading besides what is below I would be happy to hear about it.
Here is it's response from ChatGPT (Claude couldn't provide links). My contribution is that I checked the links and skimmed them to see if they supported the statement. They are repetitive (there are only 7 articles linked actually), but they generally support your comment. Of note the PLOS article does not support your comment, and it seems that it doesn't support what ChatGPT says (maybe I misunderstood when skimming it). The stuff in parens below (Looks Like This), was a link in ChatGPT, but the links didn't copy-paste, so I'm going to put all the articles at the top here:
The comment you saw online contains some accurate points but also could benefit from additional context and nuance based on available research.
1. Prevalence and Risk Factors of Schizophrenia:
- The lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia is approximately 0.3% to 0.7% globally, which supports the 1% figure as an upper bound (Nature) (BioMed Central) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
- Schizophrenia typically emerges in late adolescence to early thirties, with men often experiencing onset earlier than women (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
- Factors such as genetic predisposition, prenatal exposures, and psychosocial stressors contribute to the risk of developing schizophrenia (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) .
2. Triggers for Psychotic Breaks:
- The statement that high doses of psychedelics can trigger psychotic breaks in predisposed individuals is supported by evidence. Drug-induced psychosis, particularly from hallucinogens and cannabis, can lead to schizophrenia in some cases (Psychiatric Times) .
- Other triggers include stress, trauma, and significant life changes, which can exacerbate underlying vulnerabilities (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
3. Impact of Psychedelics on Mental Health:
- Psychedelics can pose significant risks for individuals with a family history of schizophrenia or other major mental health disorders. It is crucial for these individuals to consult healthcare professionals before considering psychedelic use (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
- Research has shown that about 25% of those with substance-induced psychosis may transition to schizophrenia, with the type of substance being a significant predictor of this transition (Psychiatric Times) .
4. General Mental Health Considerations:
- Around 3-4% of the population may experience significant mental disorders other than schizophrenia. For these individuals, the use of psychoactive substances, including psychedelics, can be particularly detrimental (PLOS) . [NOTE: This seems to be an error from ChatGPT, this PLOS article doesn't seem to support this conclusion. As I haven't done personal work on this yet, I don't know whether the statement is supported by other research.]
- Mental health evaluation and professional consultation are recommended before the use of psychedelics to identify potential risks and ensure safety (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
5. Later-Life Considerations:
- The risk of new-onset schizophrenia after the age of 45 is indeed rare, which suggests that older individuals may have a lower risk of experiencing a first psychotic episode triggered by psychedelics (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
For further reading and to deepen your understanding, you may refer to sources like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the World Health Organization (WHO), and recent research studies on the global burden and risk factors of schizophrenia (National Institute of Mental Health) (World Health Organization (WHO)) (Nature) . Additionally, the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) provides detailed information on the safety and risks associated with psychedelic use (Berkeley Psychedelics) .
You don’t need to be a doctor or therapist to let people know that some people can have very bad reactions and it’s not all roses.
I see the same thing happening in people smoke marijuana where any claim that it can have harmful effects for some or with abuse is met with “yeah well what do you know, i read this other thing and i never had issues myself”.
It seems to me that in this case the issue was someone out of their mind high on shrooms had immediate access to a gun, not the “mentally ill person does drugs and dies” trope which is quite tired and I’m pretty sure not backed by any kind of science.
I only posted my reply because comments like these add to the stigma of mental illness and may make people who are suffering less willing to try these types of treatments.
>psilocybin is one of the few treatments in the wild right now showing any hope of treating long term PTSD.
CBT, EMDR and SSRIs are effective, empirically-supported treatments for PTSD. For people who don't benefit from established treatments, psilocybin is just one of dozens of different potential treatments currently being researched.
Psilocybin might be an effective treatment for some patients with PTSD, but there's a dangerous hype bubble surrounding psychedelics that simply doesn't match up to the evidence. We need to be extremely careful about generalising from anecdotal reports and small unblinded trials. Psilocybin might be a huge advance, it might be only marginally more effective than current treatments, or the risks might substantially outweigh the benefits in real clinical populations - we just don't know yet.
It’s okay to recognize that something serves a great purpose in a controlled, therapeutic setting but may lead to unpredictable results in an uncontrolled environment. People without experience should absolutely be cautious.
And to the original commenter: Thank you for sharing your story, I am very sorry for your loss.
Receiving a controlled dose of psilocybin in a supervised medical environment is not the same as tripping balls off shrooms you bought from the guy down the street. I think OP is cautioning vulnerable people against rashly self-administering psychedelics because they think it will solve all their problems. I do not think he believes all research and use of psilocybin should be stopped because of one tragic accident.
>Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later.
Not simultaneously I hope.. that sounds like it would be a rough ride
"[methylphenidate] was selected as the active control condition to simulate the cardiovascular effects and physiological arousal (that is, controlling for dopaminergic effects) associated with psylocybin"
While it's amusing in the short term, the long term side effects for me were awful. I felt like my brain was slow and unfocused, I was no longer quick in conversation or able to concentrate as well as usual, I felt disconnected from myself, sort of like when you recall a memory so old that it seems like it belongs to someone else, I had a headache for almost 3 weeks.
Throwing this in here as there are a fair few "dude just take drugs" comments and worry they might be the religious types.
Mushrooms are very contradictory in their nature to the modern "cog in the machine" lifestyle. It's a bit like being subjected to a software fuzzer. I imagine if learning from one's inputs, one will be afterwards less sure of concepts one was very sure about, but also less sure about concepts thought previously to be impossible. That will surely increase cognitive load, especially when one's life is pretty straightforward.
Before a controlled high dose Psilocybin experience I "felt" my emotions: Anger, Fear, Frustration.
Afterwards, I gained the ability to observe and "catch" my emotions in-flight. Not sure if it was neuroplasticity induced by the substance, or "you don't know what your brain can do until you know it".
I liken it to previously having Ring 1 access to my thoughts, now I have Ring 0 access.
Definitely persistent: DRAMATIC improvement in my happiness and wellbeing.
Do you mean you can catch them and stop them? Or catch them and say "oh I'm starting to feel angry" without letting the anger consume you, but still let it exist. I'd love any elaboration you can share on this
The feeling still exists, but I can observe it and can run a secondary self-introspection loop to unpack that feeling, and often dig deeper and resolve where they feeling is coming from.
Another way of putting is that I'm self aware that the "qualia" of feeling angry is being projected into my conscious experience as a token, rather than simply experiencing "feeling angry" qualia.
I liken it to being able to set a breakpoint on my emotions, and then single step through the root cause of that emotion.
I seriously didn't have that functionality in my brain before that hero dose trip (even after doing many years of meditation).
Your second sentence is more on the right path (speaking for myself at least). It's about labeling and observing the literal physiological sensation that is occurring in your body and choosing how to react vs. identifying strongly with the current emotion and reacting.
And mindfulness meditation is training yourself to detach your conscious sense of self from those physiological sensations, noticing but not reacting to them at all!
People who are fucked up and take drugs and find it tolerable because they feel less fucked up will likely always assume the same is true of others. That is likely from the effect of having low empathy for the outliers.
Risk taking is not something to advise others to practice in. It is for each and every person to evaluate their own risk tolerance and not have them influenced by those who took risks and came out the other side "for the better".
Sounds like it could be mild dissociation/depersonalization. It's not typically considered a primary effect of psilocybin, but there is a small mention here on classical psychedelics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative
I was already predisposed to anxiety, but after using LSD quite a bit in my teens, my anxiety took over my waking life. During high anxiety and panic attacks, I often experience dissociation/depersonalization effects. I feel like I am disconnected from myself, and watching what is happening, like in a dream. The only thing I really connect with is the anxiety and fear. Over the years, through therapy and medication, this has become rarer.
It is very interesting to note that the same depersonalization is experienced after a long, deep meditative practice. I realized that this meditative depersonalization was same as when I was really mad.
I actually had to change my meditation practice from deeper states to mindfulness meditation, because I would get that depersonalization feeling. Strangely enough, being angry would break me out of that state.
That's interesting, because I don't that anyone really has reported these side effects and I don't believe there are any known pharmacological effects from psilocybin or psilocin that would cause any of that.
Were they dried mushrooms you ate? Do you trust the provenance of them? If they were a chocolate bar or similar, many of those do not actually have psilocybin or psilocin in them, and are instead using a variety of different research chemicals that are significantly less understood. If it was dried mushrooms, there are a variety of species that induce hallucinogenic effects through other chemicals than what you find in your usual magic mushrooms.
They might have been regular shrooms, of course - people react to things differently - but that's a different enough outcome that I wonder if it wasn't something else entirely.
> I don't believe there are any known pharmacological effects from psilocybin or psilocin that would cause any of that
What are your qualifications to make a claim like that? There hasn't been much clinical research in humans using psilocybin until very recently [1], and they certainly do not cover the range of different species of mushrooms that contain the alkaloids [2].
My qualifications for saying "I don't believe there are any known effects that match that" is... reading quite a lot of clinical research on their usage, and not having seen anything that would match those effects. You'll notice I qualified that statement in two ways - both that it is limited to my personal understanding and that of 'known' effects.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing - neither of these links indicate otherwise. Are you familiar with the null hypothesis? Unless we have evidence of something being the case, why would we think it would be the case?
We also have decades of anecdotal reports on usage of psilocybin and psilocin containing mushrooms and I'm also not aware of any significant evidence from that that such an effect is even remotely common - it's the first I've ever encountered that sort of story about persistent headaches for multiple weeks following their usage.
It seemed to me that you were downplaying this person's experience and were suggesting that they were possibly given other substances.
> neither of these links indicate otherwise
The articles I provided were to back my own statements that I made, not to refute yours, and I am not sure how that wasn't clear.
> I'm not really sure what you're arguing
I am saying that there really isn't a large enough body of scientific evidence yet to conclude definitively that there are no possible mechanisms that could cause this effect, as you stated. Humans aren't uniform systems.
> Are you familiar with the null hypothesis?
Yeah.
> it's the first I've ever encountered that sort of story about persistent headaches for multiple weeks following their usage.
HPPD comes to mind, serotonin syndrome, all sorts of possibilities that do not necessitate it being caused by another substance.
> It seemed to me that you were downplaying this person's experience
I'm not.
> were suggesting that they were possibly given other substances.
I am. There are a lot of people buying mislabeled products thinking they are ingesting chocolate made out of mushrooms that, in fact, are not. There are also people who sell other mushrooms, such as amanita muscaria, as your garden variety magic mushrooms. (I'm not aware of anything that would cause this with it, either, but it's got significantly less study and anecdotal reports.)
> I am saying that there really isn't a large enough body of scientific evidence yet to conclude definitively that there are no possible mechanisms that could cause this effect, as you stated. Humans aren't uniform systems.
You're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about there being definitively no possible mechanisms. I said there are, to my knowledge, not known pharmacological mechanisms. If you want to dispute that, you're going to need to find some known pharmacological mechanism.
> HPPD comes to mind, serotonin syndrome, all sorts of possibilities that do not necessitate it being caused by another substance.
HPPD can cause a variety of visual phenomenon. That is not the same thing as having a 3 week long headache. SS is a possibility but now you're into multi-drug interactions, and I'd argue the blame is more on the MAOI or SSRI - those things interact with everything. But even still, the majority of SS cases subside in <24 hours... and the literature isn't exactly favorable to the idea that psilocybin is even a good candidate for causing SS in these cases. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/assessing-risk-for-seroto... (Thomas has done several meta-analysis on this subject so he's about as informed on this topic as you can be.)
When something doesn't fit the current model of something, you ask questions about it - that's the starting point to pretty much any investigation. I'm unsure why you find this so egregious.
While the analogies are often useful, everyone reading HN comments should be very aware and very skeptical of just how often computer/tech people rely on computer/tech analogies to understand things that are fundamentally not computers/tech.
It is very very easy for smart people with functionally specific jobs/hobbies/ways of thinking to see all reality through that narrow window. It often leads to important details being glossed over or entirely missed. The more self-confident ones quickly start seeing the analogies as fundamental facts, usually with negative consequences like loss of empathy or a tendency to see big picture generalizations as specific universal truths.
Mushrooms have had a similar effect on me at times. You can start feeling like you KNOW big sweeping Truths. Similar to religiously “knowing” something. And that feeling of knowing is hard to overcome. But it is just a feeling.
Someone when taking schrooms would always "talk to God" and would get answers but they could never remember them the next day. So one day they ensured they had a notepad around to write down the answers.
They did the trip and asked "What is the meaning of life?". When they woke up all that was written on the note pad was "walls".
It must have felt profound at the time but it was basically meaningless. And that is a lot of drugs.
I've had similar experiences on mushrooms (and high doses of marijuana too, to a lesser extent). It feels like a mix of intense awe and the the satisfactory "click" of finally understanding something to me. I'm quite sure it's more of an emotional state than "fundamental truth", or anything like that, but it sure is powerful.
Very easy to understand how mythology can build around the stuff.
If I am a member of a tribe that uses ceremonial ayhuasca at regular intervals, I will build my relationships around that cycle, so the feeling of awe and understanding corresponds with an actual personal breakthrough or meaningful group event. That's the 10x use case
It might be, or it might be a ritual that has no meaningful benefit. There's a huge amount of hype around psychedelics, but extremely limited evidence with a very high risk of bias.
> It feels like a mix of intense awe and the the satisfactory "click" of finally understanding something to me.
I almost wonder if all of this is simply because drugs can produce a strong anti-anxiety / euphoric effect, providing a powerful sense of confidence in one's convictions.
It also seems to remove my ability to contextualize things which means I can't find flaws in my understanding of something as easily. This works for both good/euphoric things, where I feel like I know something (but really I can't find the flaws in my reasoning), and for bad/anxiety things, where I can feel really bad and spiral on something because I get focused on one particularly bad aspect and can't see the full picture.
I feel like this is why drugs can sometimes help with creative things, especially if you're familiar with the drug, as long as you can harness this decontextualization to put more of your focus on one thing, kind of like clearing your mind. However, its usually fruitless/harmful in anything requiring complex reasoning/judgement because it is reducing your ability to see the big picture.
As well as the complete opposite effect for certain individuals, which I think is just as important to study to help those that have these reactions. I can imagine the mythology built around visions of Hell/negative afterlife could have just as easily been sparked by negative psychedelic experiences.
I think it's a different phenomenon, personally - on drugs like MDMA I get the same euphoric effect but without the accompanying sense that I've learned anything about the universe.
Not in the sense I meant. The “enlightenment” confidence and awe-struck assuredness is the feeling and it comes from deep inside.
Recognizing that confidence and assuredness are not knowledge is not quite the same as those feelings themselves. Though I do recognize this is sort of recursive and cyclical and ultimately there’s nothing but some type of faith to build everything on, including doubt/skepticism.
Actually we overload the word "feeling" to include thoughts and perceptions which are not feelings. Like "I feel sad" is a feeling. "I feel like you are being a jerk" is not a feeling it is a thought or perception.
> Feeling "I solved the world, everybody listen to me" is... not.
Does this apply to the preceding paragraph in your comment?
How about to science, and various other The Way's currently popular bordering on mandatory (if you want to be respected at least) in this era, culture, geographical region?
Not really, have you ever tried to articulate one of your "big epiphanies" while on hallucinogens? In my experience (and experience of people I'm with) it inevitably comes out as babble. Maybe that's just because the insight is too profound to capture with language but somehow I doubt it
I have never taken hallucinogens, but I suspect I have undiagnosed narcolepsy, which causes me to occasionally experience normally unconscious sleep states in more conscious way: lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and (the weirdest of all) being conscious of falling asleep.
My experience with the latter sounds a lot like what some people are reporting in this thread. When I am in this state where I am falling asleep, but still fully conscious, I start thinking complete nonsense — sort of like wooliness is profoundly connected the concept of leftness or like ovals are one of the primary colors (but honestly much less coherent than that).
My suspicion is that it's caused by various neurons firing stochastically as part of the process of falling asleep, and it gives me the sensation that these unrelated concepts are connected to each other. I think we are supposed to be unconscious when this happens so we don't inadvertently take meaning from what is essentially random noise.
Yeah, I think you hit upon what I was trying to describe. It's also so crazy because when you're in this mindstate you truly feel that not only are ovals a primary color but also that this is a deeply profound idea
That being said, i'm a fan of this category of drugs and do feel like they can be very useful tools for introspection and other mental exercises (and they're fun lol).
I just think "drug people" take this stuff too far and often I find my reaction to things they're saying be eye rolling or thinking "it's just drugs man relax"
> You can start feeling like you KNOW big sweeping Truths.
Yep. During a pretty bad episode of delusional schizophrenia (for lack of any better diagnosis) I had that, many years ago.
I felt like I was either on the verge of a huge epiphany or I'd just had one, for a few weeks. Every time it was nonsense or couldn't be explained.
Luckily I have not relapsed and I have been off the antipsychotics for a few years
The only permanent damage is that every medical professional says I should never do psychoactive drugs. Which sucks cause they sound fun and I wonder if they'd help me get over some other problems I have. Maybe after I've retired.
It might clarify things to say unconscious beliefs, expectations, or thought patterns instead of knowledge. It doesn't seem that the subconscious mind is a font of pure wisdom and knowledge but it powerfully affects us in ways that our conscious mind isn't aware of, by definition.
Before using psychedelics, it's important to anchor ourselves by questioning the difference between knowing something and feeling like we know something.
One thing that a lot of people struggle with is seeing their feelings as ‘just’ feelings - it’s got to be something to do with our biology, where we instinctively seek out and cling to answers for why we feel a certain way - to justify our feelings I guess - instead of recognizing them as ‘just’ feelings, and seeing that instinct for what it is - ‘blind’ instinct that can easily seduce us into false beliefs.
> Before using psychedelics, it's important to anchor ourselves by questioning the difference between knowing something and feeling like we know something.
The inverse seems more prudent to me, since mostly all global decisions get made when not on psychedelics, and we arguably have a severe lack of truly novel, out of the box ideas...who knows, maybe something useful for addressing climate change, polarization, etc could result!
Or at least, run some trial studies comparing results under the three modes. I don't think I've ever heard of a study like this being done before.
Idea generation from psychedelics is okay, but we should avoid thinking we've received a divine revelation of unquestionable truth because it felt true.
This should also apply to the same during normal consciousness, but for some reason that state is privileged, beyond absolute questioning or suspicion. It's quite a neat trick.
I'm convinced this is actually a symptom of using psychedelics.
Ironically, using quite a lot of anec-data, there definitely seems to be a correlation between use of psychedelics among myself/peers and how "suggestible" people are. I've seen a lot of folks go really deep in conspiracy theories (regardless of the political/social positioning), strong religious beliefs, or similar such lines-of-thought that require a "leap of faith" or reasoning-by-analogy. Overall I believe that something about taking them puts you into a state of mind that is more "open", and therefore, more "gullible" to believe that you are latching onto some profound truth or significant idea.
I've never been sure which way the causation goes (if any), but I've known three people so far who had psychotic breaks after an intense mushroom trip. Similar to what you wrote - a sudden obsession with conspiracy theories and/or intense religious persuasions. Something they all had in common was being very confident and self-assured to begin with, which makes me wonder if it's particularly risky for those kinds of people? They all recovered, fortunately.
There are ways things can be computers that don't require the typical setup of a von Neumann architecture. Psilocybin taught me that. My education and subsequent studies confirmed that.
Not really. Two ligands of the same receptor can have very different effects. There are 5ht2a agonists who don’t even cause perceptual effects. Besides, LSD has activities at several other receptors as well, which contributes to its effect.
Extrapolation of biological effect based on the receptor affinity of a ligand is a pretty crude hypotheses.
I am not inventing this, it is what the study itself suggests.
> To determine whether this reflects a common effect of psilocybin that generalizes across datasets and psychedelics, we calculated dimension 1 scores for extant datasets from participants receiving intravenous (i.v.) psilocybin55 and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)56. Psychedelic treatment increased dimension 1 in nearly every participant in the psilocybin and LSD datasets (Fig. 2c), suggesting that this is a common effect across psychedelic drugs and individuals.
It can also induce a psychological break and/or acute schizophrenia and/or lasting distortions of perception, so maybe cool it with the unwarranted medical advice
Well I'm not a doctor. I'm a random commenter with an opinion on the internet. I would recommend people not take "medical advice" from people they don't know. I'm not going to stop sharing my opinion, though.
So can plenty of prescription drugs. I suspect you wouldn't criticize someone for suggesting, "unwarranted", that someone tries anti-depressants or any number of potentially dangerous anxiolytics.
I would absolutely give them flak because you are exactly right about these drugs. If certain medications/"medications" can help people in any way, that's awesome! But we can't treat them like harmless fun candy or like a productivity/meditation hack.
You may need a "study" to believe it, but I no longer do..
I enjoy psychedelics, but I am also aware of the potential risks because I've seen them. I don't pretend that incidents don't happen just because they are rare, and because I enjoy them.
Certainly they can disintegrate negative connections. Be warned however, they can also do the same with the positive ones. The chemicals used don’t care about the outcome of their use.
I was acquaintanced with a guy who had safely taken significant amounts of shrooms for years (he asserts more therapeutic reasons than recreational), having slowly tested up to ~5grams, so was seemingly in the clear are far as uncovering schizophrenia and the like. Then he took a bit more one day, he estimates about 7grams, and basically his connection with his sense of body and presence in the world became severed. Described it like being dead, but trapped in a body, unable to feel joy or relationships. This persisted for 3 years despite many attempts to resolve it. In the end he committed suicide.
While things like microdosing are definitely intriguing, my own exploration on the topic and reading many accounts has left me with the strong impression that for psilocybin, any dosage above 3grams (of dry Psilocybe cubensis) poses an unacceptable risk of negative outcomes.
As such, I strongly caution against naive exploration, and stay the hell away from higher doses. Especially since those seeking psychedelics as a treatment are much more likely to have multiple issues that increase the likelihood of severely negative outcomes. Users should also be aware that under elevated doses, self harm or harm to others becomes possible. Assaults, murders, and suicides under the influence are a reality that cannot morally just be ignored.
Which brings up another point; in general the psychedelic communities online that I’ve observed do not generally appreciate the mention of bad outcomes, to the point where they actively censor things as anti-psychedelic conspiracy. That coupled with problems in getting accurate medical data make it hard to tell the actual rate of severely negative outcomes. Those who take psychedelics have a vested interest in seeing only the good outcomes.
Not the parent, but my understanding is that the effects have a lot to do with the brain entering a short term state of neuroplasticity at a level that is not normally experienced in adulthood.
The result being that processing emotions and making key realizations actually “stick”. It’s possible for example as someone who suffers from PTSD to realize that it’s no longer necessary to be on high alert, but the body is anyway.
I’m also no expert so take this with a grain of salt, but I think it’s less of a defragmentation and more of an increase in pliability that leads to lasting changes.
This is one of the reasons that Psylocibin-assisted therapy is showing such promising results. The brain entering that state unguided may or may not lead to good results. But when a trained therapist is involved, outcomes improve.
This study would certainly seem to indicate that this is at least true in some form — the study shows that parts of the brain that are typically very well correlated with each other (one fires then the other fires, or they fire together) come uncoupled from each other under the influence of psilocybin.
I'm not sure it could be correctly stated in the gross sense as "jumbling it up and making it re-build," but there certainly is a shift in how the brain's components work together for the duration of the drug's effects, per this study.
Do you know similar stuff about dissociatives, like NMDA-antagonists? Are their effects in any way comparable or is it completely different net results?
In short, no. I don’t know about their effects on brain connectivity or other imaging characteristics, but the subjective effects are significantly different and the (mental) therapeutic effects come from neuroplasticity being induced, which is independent from NMDA antagonism[0]. This is likely why ketamine (and analogues) stand out as treatments for depression and other conditions.
