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Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#71

Post by throwanybble »

laser wrote: post #41
afro88 wrote: post #36

A negative anecdote: a friend of a friend of a friend went on a retreat and did actually lose his mind. He needs help and probably will for the rest of his life. Just putting it out there for some balance. I’ve heard my fair share of positive anecdotes too.

So some guy on the internet says that a friend of a friend of a friend of his lost his mind on Ayahuasca? Based on schizophrenia rates, I suspect pretty much everyone even has a friend of a friend that might catalyze their latent schizophrenia through psychedelics. But, the idea that psychedelics cause mental illness in those that otherwise would have been fine is not supported by scientific evidence[1][2], only anec…

A person who has "latent schizophrenia" would have quite possibly been "fine", had they not engaged in ingesting a substance that "catalyzes" their predisposed illness. There isn't a reliable way of measuring what would have happened to a group of "psychedelic casualties", had they not taken such substances.

Anecdote or not, and regardless of the causality argument, taking a substance can "catalyze" such conditions to use your wording. There are numerous accounts of people who truly were/are "never the same" after taking LSD or similar substances.

It's important for people to understand this, because of chicken vs. egg. If someone has such a predisposition and isn't aware of it, they might engage in ingesting such substances under the pretense that a substance cannot "cause" a mental illness, meanwhile believing there's no way they could have any such disposition. Contrarily, understanding that these chemicals absolutely are permanently-life altering, regardless of any pre-disposition, is probably the most important thing to consider when weighing pros vs. cons.

Speak to anyone who has taken LSD or similar. Whether good or bad, whether the person is mentally stable or not, the common thread is that changes in mentality/perception from taking these substances are permanent.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#72

Post by ci5er »

dannypgh wrote: post #65
ci5er wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salvia is, for me, is quite rough. But I can't imagine it causing suicide. What's the progression/causation there? Or do we just not have enough data to know?

It would likely be quite difficult to ethically do such a study. Correlation alone isn't compelling: it could simply be that the underlying reason a significant share of people turn to [insert mind-altering substance here] is underlying emotional suffering, trauma, etc. and if the substance doesn't offer any improvement they end up resorting to suicide.

Maybe.

But based on the 3rd-hand reports I have read (the suicide can't/doesn't report), the self-kill-decision seems more immediate than the realization that the efficacy of the substance wasn't, you know, efficacious.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#73

Post by KennyCason »

kobeya wrote: post #69
KennyCason wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Three screenfuls of a run on paragraph does not convince me of a desirable outcome.

I don't know if "desirable" is a suitable word for describing psychedelic experience. You don't really get to pick the outcome. The outcome largely depends on your inner self.

I don't know if any words can truly do it justice. I truly think it's an ineffable experience. :)

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#74

Post by dnc »

While I was on a retreat this year in a Peruvian village, I was told by several natives (Shipibo people) that, by their tradition (some estimations are that Shipibo tribes have been using Ayahuasca for millenias), Ayahuasca is orally taken in healing ceremonies by their shamans only. Traditionally, in the normal course of a healing ceremony, it is not a patient who takes 'the medicine' or 'the plant teacher' (Ayahuasca), but the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. Also traditionaly, Ayahuasca is taken during shamanic training (which takes years, if not a whole life) as a part of a special and very strict diet that can last between several weeks to a year or more, depending on a plant that one is dieting. During the diet shaman apprentice is supposed to take Ayahuasca, but only at the beginning and at the end of the diet, if it is a short one, or every once in couple of months if the diet is longer. The diet is a way to become familiar with the plant and learn what it has to teach you and Ayahuasca, the teacher plant, is used as a sort of a learning facilitator. From my understanding, a practice of organizing Ayahuasca ceremonies and giving the brew to foreigners in exchange for money has been relatively recently established with rising popularization of Ayahuasca and demand for it from abroad.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#75

Post by KennyCason »

kobeya wrote: post #69
KennyCason wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Three screenfuls of a run on paragraph does not convince me of a desirable outcome.

I also want to be careful that people don't do acid because they think it's going to be "fun." They will likely be in for a large surprise if they do. They should instead be prepared and do it safely. It's a lot different than drinking a beer.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#76

Post by mustacheemperor »

kobeya wrote: post #66
nowherecat wrote: post #31

Having had frequent ceremonies over the course of several months I stopped drinking the tea, because I find it is not helping being pulled from one extreme into another. Our western way of life makes it very difficult to integrate the profound experiences that one can get through this medicine and it requires major commitments to change..and it requires good helpers and facilitators. We, as westerners, are often time…

Or psychoactive drugs don’t teach you anything new but rather modify brain functionality such that you feel different. Gaining new belief or believing you have new beliefs are typically indistinguishable from the inside.

What is different between having a new belief and having your brain functionality modified such that you indistinguishably genuinely feel you have a new belief? Wouldn't the act of integrating a new belief also modify your brain functionality somehow? Not trying to start an esoteric argument, I'm interested if there's an actual answer to that.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#77

Post by odammit »

KennyCason wrote: post #64
odammit wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. I only know one person that’s done it and he said the same thing. Kicked all the habits. I didn’t know him before his trip so I assumed he was kind of full of it. Based on my escalating coffee bill maybe I should give this a swing... So are the hallucinations ever “fun”? I’ve dabbled in other things and it has generally been very video game like kidjoy. All ayahuasca hallucinations I’ve read abou…

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Holy shit, man. That’s intense.

Was that acid or ayahuasca? Did you do multiple days?

I’ve done acid a handful of times. I’ve luckily never had a “bad trip” but I did have to untangle a friend from a coil of barbed wire which he thought was jungle vines.

Another time (I’m from Florida) I went out during a tropical storm (we don’t take those seriously) with a shovel and a laminated note from myself reminding me “everything is OK, but go inland if the water gets above your belly button” and buried myself waste deep in the sand at the beach to force myself to watch the storm. That was a crazy night.

Lightening is weird when it sticks to the ground permanently.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#78

Post by refurb »

Fnoord wrote: post #56
pstuart wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only DMT experience lasted about 15 minutes, and that was plenty.

I assume Ayahuasca refers to MAOI + DMT instead of merely DMT, but I could be wrong. Although which plants would be used as source? Maybe we should try to avoid the term Ayahuasca altogether; it is vague.

You are correct! DMT isn't really effective orally without an MAO inhibitor.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#79

Post by hhhxyxyy »

adrusi wrote: post #60
darpa_escapee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The functional difference between 'causes schizophrenia' and 'triggers latent schizophrenia' to someone who is diagnosed with schizophrenia after ingesting ayahuasca is practically non-existent. Sure, you can generalize that those with family members who have schizophrenia are at an increased risk of having it rear its head. However, not everyone with schizophrenia gets diagnosed nor do many people have detailed psyc…

Presumably the person with latent schizophrenia would see it emerge at later date even if they didn't take psychedelics. If the drug is only making symptoms emerge earlier, the cost of the trip is only however many years of sanity you had left (say, 5) rather than a lifetime of sanity (~65 years).

What’s the basis for your presumption?

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#80

Post by Radim »

dnc wrote: post #74

While I was on a retreat this year in a Peruvian village, I was told by several natives (Shipibo people) that, by their tradition (some estimations are that Shipibo tribes have been using Ayahuasca for millenias), Ayahuasca is orally taken in healing ceremonies by their shamans only. Traditionally, in the normal course of a healing ceremony, it is not a patient who takes 'the medicine' or 'the plant teacher' (Ayahuas…

     the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it.
And how was that working out for them, from what you could see? Did patients there prefer the "traditional" or the "western" medicine?
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