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Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#91

Post by isoskeles »

Fnoord wrote: post #46
andai wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm, addictions to sugar, caffeine, alcohol and cannabis evaporated during my trip and did not return for many weeks. I had never felt so peaceful and balanced in my life. Whereas previously I was trying to escape chaos with substances, now consuming substances would only serve unbalance me. I felt like, wow, this is what a human being is supposed to feel like! When you face what is within you, and process it…

Ibogaine also reportedly has that effect. [1] Out of the addictions you claim you had, only alcohol is severe. Cannabis is mostly psychological addiction but users often combine it with tobacco which is also physiological addicting. Caffeine addiction is very easy to break with some sheer willpower. The withdrawal symptoms only last 1-2 days, and the side effects are a serious headache. That's nothing compared to her…

> You don't see burglars breaking in to steal sugar, do you?

Sugar is easily available. I'm not saying it's addictive or not, I don't know enough about that, but if people are addicted to it, there's not a real need to steal it when you can buy a soda for less than $2. That's why you don't see burglars breaking in anywhere to steal it.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#92

Post by borski »

SwellJoe wrote: post #82
virtualwhys wrote: post #13

> Could psychedelic drug ayahuasca have health benefits? Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. On the flip side, as the article mentions, the psychedlic tourism industry as a whole doesn't have formal safe guards in place for when the…

"Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore." Isn't three days about how long it takes to get over caffeine withdrawal symptoms, regardless of whether one has retreated to Latin America and taken psychedelic drugs?

That's the peak. It can last about a week.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#94

Post by shroomy-throw »

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.

Ayahuasca refers specifically to the shaman brew made with the raw ingredients. It does contain MAOI + DMT, but there's also some history of some shamans making ayahuasca who were missing the DMT.

If you're taking DMT by itself, I believe it needs to be smoked/vaporized. And then you get the 15-minute trip.

6-8 hours of a DMT trip sounds honestly horrifying. If I was to do to it, I also wouldn't try to make an "authentic" jungle brew. I would fast, and then take MAOI and DMT in fairly pure forms. Having to drink a galloon of shaman brew sounds like a good way to guarantee gastro-intestinal distress.

On a similar note, I despise eating psychedelic mushrooms--- there's nothing worse than tripping and feeling like you need to poop. Cut 'em up (with a knife or with a coffee grinder), wrap them in cheesecloth, throw in some bags of lemon tea, and you've got yourself a mushroom tea, that also hits harder/faster/shorter.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#95

Post by LaikaF »

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.

Ayahuasca referrers to the uses of plants. Normally done by Shamans. pharmahuasca is DMT + MAOI inhibitor

The experience is very different. Ayahuasca has a lot of bad side effects such as vomiting, sea legs, and diarrhea

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#96

Post by cc81 »

throwanybble wrote: post #71
laser wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Not noticed any permanent changes from LSD (quite a lot of trips and a few heavy ones but nothing truly extreme like a full strip).

I can never as I only have my own experience but I think that a lot of "deep insights" and changes comes from people thinking that that is what should happen. Like when young teens get drunk from non-alcoholic beer.

I'm not saying it does not happen but I think it is rarer than people think it is and it is rare that a trip will introduce permanent change in someones behavior. I think that people feel that it was a great experience and say that now they will live their life differently but that they slowly just return to their normal life and behavior.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#97

Post by dnc »

Radim wrote: post #80
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?

I was not long enough to make any general conclusions, but from what I could see it is a mixture. I saw quite a few 'westerners' who had given up 'western' medicine and came to try Ayahuasca for various reasons. As for natives, I don't know, I think they still go to traditional healers, but also very rapidly adopt 'western lifestyle'. I'm sure 'western' medicine is not an exception from this trend. Ayahuasca still seems to be deeply ingrained in their culture and original religion (which is a sort of spiritual pantheism for the lack of a better term), it is considered holly plant and still deeply revered and respected. Personally, I would not like to see this tradition they have preserved for millennia to disappear or completely mutates into something like "Ayahuasca turism"...

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

astura wrote: post #86

My brother went on an Ayahuasca retreat but ended up deeply disappointed that it didn't change his life and his problems got much worse as a result. Of course, that can happen with any treatments as well. However, professional support could maybe mitigate that a bit. Plus actual data may give a better idea of likely outcomes. He then came home and took LSD that caused an episode of psychosis that lasted a couple week…

[deleted]

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#99

Post by anythingnonidin »

astura wrote: post #86

My brother went on an Ayahuasca retreat but ended up deeply disappointed that it didn't change his life and his problems got much worse as a result. Of course, that can happen with any treatments as well. However, professional support could maybe mitigate that a bit. Plus actual data may give a better idea of likely outcomes. He then came home and took LSD that caused an episode of psychosis that lasted a couple week…

Did any of the following apply?

> No current or past history of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, no Bipolar I or II disorder, and no first or second-degree (“A second-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual’s grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces or half-siblings.”) relatives with these disorders.3

https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-h...

Also this means that it is advisable for you to steer clear of psychedelics.

For what it’s worth:

> “Since the early 1990s, approximately 2000 doses of psilocybin (ranging from low to high doses) have been safely administered to humans in the United States and Europe, in carefully controlled scientific settings, with no reports of any medical or psychiatric serious AEs, including no reported cases of prolonged psychosis or HPPD (Studerus et al., 2011).”1

https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shroom...

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#100

Post by anythingnonidin »

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.

Did any of the following apply?

> No current or past history of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, no Bipolar I or II disorder, and no first or second-degree (“A second-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual’s grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces or half-siblings.”) relatives with these disorders.3

https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-h...

For what it’s worth:

> “Since the early 1990s, approximately 2000 doses of psilocybin (ranging from low to high doses) have been safely administered to humans in the United States and Europe, in carefully controlled scientific settings, with no reports of any medical or psychiatric serious AEs, including no reported cases of prolonged psychosis or HPPD (Studerus et al., 2011).”1

https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shroom...

Psilocybin isn’t the same as ayahuasca or LSD but we’d expect it to have an extremely similar safety and adverse effect profile.

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