Tell that to Anthony Bourdain...
Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
141–150 of 240 posts
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#142My experience tells me that excessive MDMA use makes the drug not work, and results in severe depression. I've experienced it, I've seen others experience it. Neurotoxicity would seem to be the explanation.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#143I’m really worried about the subset of the population with preexisting mental disorders such as manic depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and depression who will suffer a psychotic break from the use of these substances. Maybe I’m wrong, but from what I’ve heard and read it seems like there’s no way to know what will happen until you try it. A certain percentage of the population goes to hell in the most literal sens…
I have permanent visual disturbances and suffered long-term panic attacks and anxiety as a result of psychedelic use. Things got better over time, but not completely back to normal. I'm not advocating for the continuation of our current legal strategy, but I feel like these drugs need to come with strong cultural wisdom about their appropriate use and potential for abuse. Anyone who's been in a psychedelic community…
Yes, I experienced being 'fried' for a couple of years after excessive MDMA and LSD use. My experience mirrors yours.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over time people build up useful heuristics. There is a difference between questioning authority vs questioning why tuesdays exist and if maybe it's sunday for dogs.
>"questioning why tuesdays exist" I don't see a problem with this line of questioning. There is lots interesting to consider there. Just some stream of thought: What does tuesday mean anyway, why do we have weeks, why 7 days per week, what is the exact definition of day, could there be planets without "days", do dogs recognize a weekly cycle, would they if "freerunning" without human companionship, what about wolves…
It becomes not optional and is a waste of time. People get stuck questioning everything and become useless piles of flesh. It happened to me for a couple of years after too much LSD.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#145I don't know how legitimate these stories are, but some folks swear that they've gotten rid of various addictions after their trips on Ayahuasca. This is apparently a mixture of plants that some tribes in South America have been using for self-medication for ages.
Yeah, let's take medical advice from ancient intoxicated tribesmen. That will work out great.
excuse me sir, your western chauvinism is showing
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have permanent visual disturbances and suffered long-term panic attacks and anxiety as a result of psychedelic use. Things got better over time, but not completely back to normal. I'm not advocating for the continuation of our current legal strategy, but I feel like these drugs need to come with strong cultural wisdom about their appropriate use and potential for abuse. Anyone who's been in a psychedelic community…
Are these people "fried" because they used those substances, or because of how they used them, or how they viewed, integrated (or not-integrated) their experiences? A visual distortion is a good example. When experiencing a visual distortion, it is possible to feel anxious about the appearance of such a distortion, or instead one could be indifferent to it, or even enjoy and welcome it. It need not be negative. More…
Depends on the distortion. A visual distortion means that you aren't seeing things as they really are. That could be problematic for your ability to drive, or to ride a bike, or any number of other activities. You could be indifferent to that, but it could still be a genuine problem for your ability to function.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#147I’m really worried about the subset of the population with preexisting mental disorders such as manic depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and depression who will suffer a psychotic break from the use of these substances. Maybe I’m wrong, but from what I’ve heard and read it seems like there’s no way to know what will happen until you try it. A certain percentage of the population goes to hell in the most literal sens…
So you haven't done it, you have no studies to back this idea, but you just assume it's going to be a problem somehow.. So-called "bad trips" can be tremendously beneficial afterwards. They're "bad" because you get into the kind of deep, uncomfortable introspection that most people would want to avoid naturally. You learn things about yourself and the world that you probably wouldn't have wanted to know. That doesn't…
"So-called "bad trips" can be tremendously beneficial afterwards. They're "bad" because you get into the kind of deep, uncomfortable introspection that most people would want to avoid naturally."
While such uncomfortable introspection could certainly occur in a bad trip, it's far from the only kind of experience that could make a trip bad. You could also find yourself imagining you're in something like a horror movie or in hell, dead, or dying.
Terrence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake coined the term "necrotogen" (a play on the much more common term "entheogen") for the common effect that psychedelics have of being confronted with death. Such an experience often feels very real, sometimes even "more real than real".
That kind of experience is much more than simply uncomfortable introspection, especially when it's combined with temporal distortions and confusion that is also common in psychedelic experiences -- where one feels like what one experiences takes years, decades, centuries, or millennia, or that one is stuck in a temporal loop of doing the same thing over and over again, or that one can't escape from the distressing situation that one is in, or that one doesn't know who one is or where one is or what is happening or what is real and what isn't.
Are you really dying? Did you just murder someone? Or are you being murdered or threatened in some way? Did someone call the police or ambulance? Are you in jail or being tortured or abducted by aliens or dead and experiencing decomposition, etc.
Despite all that, I fully agree that one could learn a lot from such very negative experiences -- for example, how to cope with them -- and the "bad" trip could wind up being one of the best trips one ever had because of what it revealed to you about yourself and the world.
Also, it's quite common for such a "dark night of the soul" experience and/or ego-death to be followed by an experience of rebirth and of very positive, life-enhancing and life-embracing revelation (incidentally, such psychedelic experiences bear strong similarities to shamanic initiation experiences, where sickness, bodily dissolution, and death prefigure and even legitimize the abilities and status of the shaman). But even without the latter, it could still be very constructive, and one could learn a lot.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
A clinical setting is far different than giving someone some tabs and letting them loose at a concert or house party.
I read another article recently (posted on here I think) saying that most of the clinical protocols are borrowed from the rituals and advice of underground new age healer types. These people likely have the most experience in avoiding a bad time.
Check our Michael Pollen's new book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, if you're interested in getting a stronger historical context of the use of these drugs in all sorts of settings.
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
A clinical setting is far different than giving someone some tabs and letting them loose at a concert or house party.
I read another article recently (posted on here I think) saying that most of the clinical protocols are borrowed from the rituals and advice of underground new age healer types. These people likely have the most experience in avoiding a bad time.
Doubtful, most clinical practices are very unaware of how their setups affect the results. They understand “set and setting” intellectually, but not viscerally. So they act surprised when patients dosed DMT in a hospital experience contact with bizarre alien entities that coincidentally resemble hospital workers. (See nick sand’s critque of strassman’s DMT study as one example)
Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps we need a new category of prescription, e.g. "for use only under direct supervision of a qualified medical professional" In other words it could be dispensed in a clinical setting, but not via a pharmacy or other "take home" pathways. I'm thinking that must already exists for certain surgical anesthetics, etc.
I agree that experienced guides are important for high doses, but microdosing is safe for DIY.
And note that a microdose is like 5ug, not 25ug. Just to state the obvious. (100ug being a standard strong tab)