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Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#3
Could this be wishful thinking?

I think the church banned psychedelics because it gives people religious experiences easily, and their interpretations sometimes really stink.

So I'm curious where all this is going wrt spirituality. Especially during the last days of humanity, as we are slowly self assimilating into a system greater than humans.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#5
I don't have any evidence of this but I stronly suspect that doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or atleast let you deal with them much better. I'm saying this in case someone decides to experiment with DMT or other halucinogens, you should seriously consider trying meditation as a prerequisite.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#6
post #5

I don't have any evidence of this but I stronly suspect that doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or atleast let you deal with them much better. I'm saying this in case someone decides to experiment with DMT or other halucinogens, you should seriously consider trying meditation as a prerequisite.

Anything specific practices you recommend? I'm not interested in ayahuasca, but meditation has been on my list for a while now.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#8
post #5

I don't have any evidence of this but I stronly suspect that doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or atleast let you deal with them much better. I'm saying this in case someone decides to experiment with DMT or other halucinogens, you should seriously consider trying meditation as a prerequisite.

Anything specific practices you recommend? I'm not interested in ayahuasca, but meditation has been on my list for a while now.

Install an app and start - Headspace is popular and easy to get going with.

There are lots of different practices, sure, but it's a lot like jogging: you don't need to learn a lot of technique, just need to get up and do it.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#9
Ayahuasca is a South American brew consisting of two plants one consisting of a MAOI and another of DMT (the exact plant genus differs). DMT without a MAOI gets broken down by the blood brain barrier, so its not efficient without the MAOI.

The MAOI however puts dietary restrictions before the drug is being administered, and also makes the drug last vastly longer. Without the MAOI, the DMT wouldn't last long (IIRC even less long than Salvia). That might be an interesting use case.

Apart from that, there's all the time research on tryptamines [1] (MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, etc) used to treat mental diseases and personality disorders. The advantage synthetic drugs have is they're easier to standardise. I'm not sure why you'd want to research MAOI + DMT instead of the ones already mentioned? What advantages could it have over those?

[1] http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/Psychedelic-Pharma...

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