yes.
Can? Yes. Will? Maaybe.
Can psychedelics make you a better person?
11–20 of 115 posts
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#12It's a pity that research on MDMA was stopped due to the drug war.
FYI, that research has resumed: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/opinion/ecstasy-ptsd.html
There is also research being done on using mushrooms and ketamine to treat depression: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/13/magic-mushro...
I think the attitudes people have towards recreational drugs are changing slowly, but they are changing.
Sidenote: while MDMA is believed to have therapeutic potential, it's usually categorized as an empathogen rather than a psychedelic. It helps people feel empathy (a connection to others) and temporarily suppresses anxiety and fear. Makes it possible to re-examine traumatic events in your past without judging yourself negatively. However, it isn't known to produce visions or a "mystical experience" as psychedelics do.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#13Anything can make you a better person, depending on the type of person you are. Personally I have panic disorder and would probably go full schizo.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#14ibogaine
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#15It's a pity that research on MDMA was stopped due to the drug war.
Yeah just anecdotally, it did make me a better person. Not at first, but the experience of being unequivically, obviously _happy_, for the first time in my life, understanding that I was going to be okay, that I could just like talk to people and make friends, and so on — even if it was mediated by drugs, made me realize how much of my perception of how the world was, lived only inside my head. Nothing about the worl…
> My perception of the world was obviously distorted in some way by the drug, but my perception while sober was also distorted by a lifetime of traumatic experiences that molded how I felt about myself and other people.
This. I wish we could put this realisation on par with object permenance and other massive cognitive models we discover as we grow.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#16It's a pity that research on MDMA was stopped due to the drug war.
Yeah just anecdotally, it did make me a better person. Not at first, but the experience of being unequivically, obviously _happy_, for the first time in my life, understanding that I was going to be okay, that I could just like talk to people and make friends, and so on — even if it was mediated by drugs, made me realize how much of my perception of how the world was, lived only inside my head. Nothing about the worl…
This was my experience as well, way back in the 90s-- it was like all the 'walls' dividing me from others came down.
I would add that another aspect which could have been helped by the presence of a therapist is the comedown. I went from one of the most elated & connected experiences of my entire life to one of the worst depressions, as I realized that 95% of the good feelings were fading away and my walls were involuntarily coming right back up. The only silver lining was the belief (which I still hold) that at least parts of that connectedness could be revisited by being more dedicated to cultivating moments where it was likely to occur.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#174 months of working with ayahuasca with some of the best shamans in the amazon cured my depression, anxiety and panic attacks. During that time I have seen so many people get cured from all sorts of different issues. It's an amazing medicine. If you decide to do it, make sure you do some proper research on which centers are good before you go.
For those wanting to go down this road, where do you even start?
Start with Erowid.org's overview of it:
https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca.shtml
Read the Experience reports [1]. These will be the only way you know what to expect: emotional state, temperament, bodyweight, gender and personal pharmacodynamics are all variables.
Trust me, from there you can figure out the rest.
[1] - https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ayahuasca.shtml
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#18Is you need drugs to become more open minded and empathetic, the source of the problem is your upbringing, and by proxy the culture. The contemporary liberal western culture actively works towards shaping us into selfish materialistic consumerist narrow minded soulless beings. Half a trillion dollars per year go towards this effort, and the solution is start drugging ourselves with LSD? Bet, if that ever became common, advertisers would find some way to exploit that too, so that instead of enlightenment your mind starts flashing ads all throughout the high.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#19Be interesting to see the stats that might indicate some kind of rational answer for this question. Personal anecdotes, interesting though they may be, are irrelevant.
Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?
#20There is so much introspective thinking going on when you do mushrooms...you’re engrossed the next day in thinking about all the things you discovered about yourself and who you are. Whether that makes you a better person or not, I don’t know.