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Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

nature.com

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Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#161

Post by beepboopbeep »

kortex wrote: post #77
skohan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can turn it into some kinda pill people have to take every day. I feel like this model is a perfect example of how the incentive structure of the pharmaceutical industry runs counter to pursuit of the best outcomes. From what I understand anecdotally, psilocybin taken in moderate doses can have beneficial effects on depression and anxiety which last for weeks or months after the dose. This would be an amazing…

Moderate does trips aren't for everyone. The HN crew is full of novelty-seeking, curious, open-minded explorers, already drawn to this sort of experience. Your average, vanilla soccer mom who is largely okay with life but struggles with panic attacks because her brain isn't great at damping the amygdala-cortical loop, may not necessarily be ready/interested in a trip through psychedelic space.

This is a bad assumption on both ends (HN comments are most definitely not a bastion of free thought and expression.) but If people affected by PTSD can re-experience their trauma in controlled therapeutic settings using psychedelic compounds, so to can most others. Psychedelics are not for everyone, but they are certainly also not limited to chosen ones.

As a mini-side rant, I've found that people in the psychedelic community (defined as those that purposefully use psychedelics vs more spur of the moment usage) have pumped them selves up on their own identities as these "open minded explorers". I've actually found them to be belligerently dug in when faced with new evidence, information, and perspectives.

Source: I helped run a major city psychedelic community for a couple years

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#162

Post by joeberon »

luckydata wrote: post #149
crisissolution wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to add my own experience on LSD and the long-lasting effect of fear-of-death it can result in. I have taken LSD only three times and can't say I enjoyed it very much, but I still wanted to give it a chance. Last time I took a 1/2 of what was recommended for me to see how it goes, and the beginning was pretty enjoyable, I played League of Legends, and the mobs started walking on the wall b…

sounds like your trip was done very sub-optimally. I can't imagine a violent video game being something I would like to be involved while on psilocybin or similar. read this before trying again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

League of Legends is hardly a "violent video game"

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#163

Post by joeberon »

empath75 wrote: post #136
joeberon wrote: post #6

Totally anecdotal but LSD made my depression significantly worse than improving it in any way. I had two proper trips and had a seizure kind of thing at the start of the second one due to the overwhelming visuals (not experienced anything like that before or since). EDIT: to expand, it made me very questioning of my own consciousness and gave me severe and persistent existential dread and fear of death to the point w…

I don't want to downplay the negative effect it had on you and the difficulty you're having integrating the experience, but it's possible that long term, confronting those thoughts and feelings directly and coming through the other side will end up being better for you. Everyone has to confront their own mortality eventually.

>confronting those thoughts and feelings directly and coming through the other side will end up being better for you.

I am not sure whether this is actually true, or whether the rumination and pondering will mess me up more

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#164

Post by plutonorm »

mrxd wrote: post #128
kortex wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderate does trips aren't for everyone. The HN crew is full of novelty-seeking, curious, open-minded explorers, already drawn to this sort of experience. Your average, vanilla soccer mom who is largely okay with life but struggles with panic attacks because her brain isn't great at damping the amygdala-cortical loop, may not necessarily be ready/interested in a trip through psychedelic space.

That’s probably true some of the time, but I think there’s a mode of mental health issues that I’ve experienced personally and seen in others who approach life with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. Basically, my hypothesis is that some people have contradictory impulses of desire and fear of stimulation and calm at the same time. You don’t have two groups of people (novelty-seeking HN crew vs vanilla so…

That's me. Easily overstimulated, yet drive myself to exhaustion because everything is too damn exciting. If you ask me it's a combination of high dopamine and high neural excitability/high connectivity. I think many programmers are like this and exist in a semi-permanent state of exhaustion.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#165

Post by kaikai »

colordrops wrote: post #160

> Whereas higher levels of medial prefrontal cortical glutamate were associated with negatively experienced ego dissolution, lower levels in hippocampal glutamate were associated with positively experienced ego dissolution. This is interesting. Is there any practical techniques on how to induce the latter form of ego dissolution?

Eat mushrooms, apparently.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#166

Post by [deleted] »

WalterSear wrote: post #118
stallmanite wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t affect the same receptors as “classic” psychedelics (LSD, DMT, Mescaline) but dissociatives aka dissociative psychedelics are wildly psychedelic at high doses. It seems ludicrous to insist otherwise. Is Salvinorin-A not a psychedelic?

I have a prescription and take it every three days. A clinically effective intranasal dose is about as psychedelic as a couple of beers.

[deleted]

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#167

Post by stallmanite »

bluntfang wrote: post #130
stallmanite wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t affect the same receptors as “classic” psychedelics (LSD, DMT, Mescaline) but dissociatives aka dissociative psychedelics are wildly psychedelic at high doses. It seems ludicrous to insist otherwise. Is Salvinorin-A not a psychedelic?

I think you have it a little backwards. IME, psychedelics give dissociative effects along with the psychedelic experience and the dissociative experience is solely dissociative on its own. I think there's a lot of confusion on what a psychedelic experience is and it gets confused with a hallucinogenic experience, which both classes of substance can offer.

I’ve been following this stuff since the mid 90s and am familiar with the terminology.

What do you assert is the difference between a psychedelic experience and a hallucinogenic experience then? Dissociative I agree only partially overlaps with psychedelic on a venn diagram but hallucinogen and psychedelic I understand as synonymous.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#168

Post by bluntfang »

stallmanite wrote: post #167
bluntfang wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it a little backwards. IME, psychedelics give dissociative effects along with the psychedelic experience and the dissociative experience is solely dissociative on its own. I think there's a lot of confusion on what a psychedelic experience is and it gets confused with a hallucinogenic experience, which both classes of substance can offer.

I’ve been following this stuff since the mid 90s and am familiar with the terminology. What do you assert is the difference between a psychedelic experience and a hallucinogenic experience then? Dissociative I agree only partially overlaps with psychedelic on a venn diagram but hallucinogen and psychedelic I understand as synonymous.

Hallucinations are pretty concretely defined, medically. Seeing stuff that isn't there. Hearing stuff that isn't there. Things moving when they aren't.

For me, the psychedelic experience is more about the "Ah hah! we're all in this together! We're all the same thing! I've removed the veil and barriers I've built up all my life and can finally see clearly what it's All About." I'm sure it's different for others, but I don't experience that "oneness" or "connection" on dissociative. It feels like I am born again, free to be vulnerable and experience the world without the lenses that society and myself have placed over my eyes.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#169

Post by bluntfang »

joeberon wrote: post #162
luckydata wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like your trip was done very sub-optimally. I can't imagine a violent video game being something I would like to be involved while on psilocybin or similar. read this before trying again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

League of Legends is hardly a "violent video game"

what? you're literally destroying a city and killing hundreds of creatures a game with the goal of destroying the building that allows them to exist. How is that not violent?

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#170

Post by pharke »

Kalium wrote: post #145
pharke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the sentiment most people are expressing when they say you cannot separate the "trip" from the beneficial effects is that they both have the same origin or causative agent. Personally I'm in the "neural annealing" camp and it makes sense to me from personal experience that the benefits are due to psychedelics being a drug that essentially induces a state that you would normally only experience during profou…

> I believe the sentiment most people are expressing when they say you cannot separate the "trip" from the beneficial effects is that they both have the same origin or causative agent. Perhaps I've swallowed too much propaganda, but this seems like a testable belief. What if it's not true? What if psychadelic-assisted therapy is just one of multiple viable psychadelic-assisted treatment approaches? What if people wan…

I don't oppose the research or having more treatment options, I'm sure they would be necessary in many cases. My perception of it is a bit negative though at least when imagined to be an easy to access option for everyone, it's the same sort of opposition I feel towards the idea of taking steroids to promote muscle growth.
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