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Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

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31–40 of 98 posts

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#31

50 years too late. Of course, 50+ years ago, it was the hippies doing the experimentation. As The Man hated the hippies and the youth culture of the time, they instituted these draconian drug laws we've lived under since making it impossible to determine whether drugs like LSD or psilocybin or cannabis might have beneficial therapeutic effects.

Meh... 50 years ago psychedelics were overplayed and used in inappropriate settings. Not surprising the backlash.

It looks like this time around the experiments are much more controlled and looking to get hard data rather than just "turn on, tune in, drop out".

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#32
post #3

Our nation has been in a fully impaired state since fearmongering the 70s caused LSD to become a Schedule 1 substance, more illegal than Cocaine. Hopefully meaningful research will result in legislative changes allowing more people access to beneficial and potentially lifechanging medicines and experiences. It seems that the cat is out of the proverbial petri dish compared to that era, and now it's only a matter of t…

But the teens and twenties of the '60s & '70s are now in their 50s to 70s. Maybe they have some clout?

You can probably name some "capitalist hippies" with money and influence.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#33
This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most.

Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso.

This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure.

For about an hour, the world remained as it always had. Then, I started periodically feeling something akin to an electric shock pass through my body. Electricity is only a useful explanation in so far as how long the pulses lasted. On and off in an instant.

The shocks were like momentary flashes of comfort. In the time between seconds when those flashes occurred, the chair I was sitting on was softer, my clothes were more comfortable and I felt a glow of appreciation for the people in the room with me.

I decided to set a watch and eat more general tso on the hour.

Eventually the pulses blurred from spikes to rolling hills. I realized they happened when I was stimulated by something beautiful. The mundane became beautiful. The contrast and saturation of my vision increased. My brain streamed my visual frame buffer through a pixel shader that made everything photogenic, perfectly tone mapped. It was like HDR for the eyes.

Beauty is something I had never had a refined eye for. Stuff looked "neat". This felt like a visual sense that perhaps existed normally in other people, but for me I was only borrowing.

Then my alarm went off. Time for more chicken!

While I was eating, we started watching dune. I was stunned by how colorful David Lynch's dune is. Vibrant purple and green matte backgrounds. I would have told you the movie was all desert tone yesterday.

I shut off my alarm until the movie was done.

I ate one more scoop of general tso after that. Then, I laid down in the dark. I was able to visualize incredibly complicated 3d shapes. I could persist those shapes, rotate, scale and modify them while keeping the image at the forefront. This capability was clearly an enhancement. I got up, opened blender and "printed" some of the things created entirely mentally.

After I laid back down, I thought about my childhood. I thought about frayed relationships and trauma I had experienced. Every negative experience I could come up with bounced off simple epiphany after simple epiphany.

Prior to this, I was under a crushing amount of stress. I felt like I was being hunted, under attack in a world devoid of merit. I was misanthropic.

I thought about the situation I was in, and determined I was fine. Everything is going to be okay. We're all bouncing amidst a manifold, influenced by each other. The whole of humanity, even the crabs pulling at our feet, is beautiful. Quite a few people try to pierce the manifold to transcend the chaos. Maybe we'll never do it? It's valuable to try regardless.

The evil in my life became re-framed as force that might send me towards the boundary. Approaching the boundary is the goal.

Even if I fail at everything, I'm better for trying, even after death.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#34
post #28
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suspect Joe Rogan has also been a fair influence too. His podcast has a massive and varied fan base, and he's a pretty consistent promoter of the benefits of psychedelics.

I think it's just the world. Joe Rogan is popular because currently "Joe Rogan Things" are growing (Weed, fitness, nutrition, MMA, psychadelics). These are all trending.

There's likely a feedback loop involved. Commentators who happen to talk about trending topics become popular; their popular platform can bring those topics to a broader audience; that broader audience stokes the hype around the trend and builds the audience further through (social media-amplified) word of mouth.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#35

So exciting to see. What does society look like when science starts investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens?

Several recent books on the topic present psychedelics as a tool for Science. Most link to the famous quote from Stan Grof on psychedelics as the "microscope" for the mind (or telescope). It really does not look like getting through the Eastern philosophy lens... And the new center's backers seem motivated by the tooling potential too...

--- The books I refer to include Pollan's recent book (cited several times in this thread), some of Grof publications, "A Really Good Day" by Ayelet Waldman, a plethora of "reports" from people's experience on Medium, and preview on Consciousness Medicine from Françoise Bourzat.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#36
post #33

This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso. This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure. For abo…

Beautiful, and similar to my own experiences. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#38
post #16

Lots of revived interest in psychedelics that is finally coming front and center in no small part due to Michael Pollan's recent book "How to Change Your Mind". Rolland Griffiths plays a pivotal role in the book (and in the real life advocacy and study of psychedelics) and Pollan probably seeded the ideas of psilocybin's potential into the right ears around Berkeley and on his book tour [1]. Think there's a ton of po…

Suspect Joe Rogan has also been a fair influence too. His podcast has a massive and varied fan base, and he's a pretty consistent promoter of the benefits of psychedelics.

For me he definitely made psychedelics from something I vaguely had heard about and only crazy people use into something normal people could use.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#39
post #16

Lots of revived interest in psychedelics that is finally coming front and center in no small part due to Michael Pollan's recent book "How to Change Your Mind". Rolland Griffiths plays a pivotal role in the book (and in the real life advocacy and study of psychedelics) and Pollan probably seeded the ideas of psilocybin's potential into the right ears around Berkeley and on his book tour [1]. Think there's a ton of po…

Suspect Joe Rogan has also been a fair influence too. His podcast has a massive and varied fan base, and he's a pretty consistent promoter of the benefits of psychedelics.

Tim Ferris donated a lot of his personal wealth directly to this cause and promoted it on his podcast frequently as well.

Re: Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

#40
post #33

This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso. This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure. For abo…

Is it possible to do mathematics while on such drugs? I am working through a textbook on projective geometry and I feel like those visualization enhancements would be super useful.
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