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Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

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Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#11

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

Not clinical, but meditative:

I use mushrooms sometimes (rarely, very carefully) while meditating.

They tend to stimulate the area around the vagus nerve - and since meditation is partly frustration, that in turn triggers “uncomfortable” memories.

Also, they seem to smoothen nervous activity? Meditating with closed eyes, often the “black net if colored dots” i see when im sober gets a new more fluid attribute, less choppy.

More often than not, intense crying ensues, and quite a bit of unconscious material surfaces and get confronted.

One drawback to “scoring mushrooms” for emotional healing is quality is inconsistent -

I imagine consistent quality and able hands could greatly help traumatized individuals .. its not a trip in the hedonistic sense, its quite frankly aching to a religious experience

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#12

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

I am bo no means an expert, but from what I have established clinical use is no where near 'tripping' - they use 'micro dosages' which results in a very light amount of cognitive change. You would be as tripped out as you would be getting into a nice warm bath with some smelly salts. A feeling of all is well in the world.

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#13

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

I am bo no means an expert, but from what I have established clinical use is no where near 'tripping' - they use 'micro dosages' which results in a very light amount of cognitive change. You would be as tripped out as you would be getting into a nice warm bath with some smelly salts. A feeling of all is well in the world.

"from what I have established clinical use is no where near 'tripping' - they use 'micro dosages'"

This is just wrong. They use full doses, just not "heroic doses".

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#14

Links involving MDMA, LSD, and shrooms often get upvoted to the top of HN. Is there anywhere to read the consensus on news, both legal and scientific, on what’s the current status of psychedelics and recreational drugs worldwide?

the historical links between the sf bay area early technology/microcomputer scene, and recreational psychedelic substances are quite old...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL

there's a large venn diagram overlap between some of the earliest members there at the WELL (and, for instance, the people who founded burning man), and the california tech industry.

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#15

Links involving MDMA, LSD, and shrooms often get upvoted to the top of HN. Is there anywhere to read the consensus on news, both legal and scientific, on what’s the current status of psychedelics and recreational drugs worldwide?

From the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists:

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/divisi...

https://elearning.rcpsych.ac.uk/learningmodules/psychedelicd...

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/sigs/s...

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/events/present...

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#16

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

Not psilocybin, but this exact topic is covered in the book DMT: The Spirit Molecule, by Dr. Rick Strassman. My memory is a bit fuzzy on his exact points, but the clinical setting was definitely found to have a detrimental effect on the experience.

Yeah not all subjects responded negatively, but I do believe a majority did, in the lesser happy sessions. I do think they took care of creating 'set and setting' more.

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not the user experience you're intending, but the The Vaults of Erowid is a decent start.

One of the best and most unique web sites I've ever visited also. It's 90's classic internet but nothing has come along to do things it does better.

One of the most educative ones for drug users as well. Trip reports were always an interesting read, being aware of dosage and effects, reading from others' bad experiences to be avoided.

Erowid is massively educational if you got any interest in psychedelics or mind-altering substances in general.

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#18

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

I'd recommend reading Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" which covers the topic well. In short, "set and setting" is critically important.

https://michaelpollan.com/books/how-to-change-your-mind/

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#19

Are there accounts of what it's like to use psilocybin in a clinical setting? I'm imagining tripping in a therapist's office. Doesn't sound very pleasant.

I am bo no means an expert, but from what I have established clinical use is no where near 'tripping' - they use 'micro dosages' which results in a very light amount of cognitive change. You would be as tripped out as you would be getting into a nice warm bath with some smelly salts. A feeling of all is well in the world.

From what I've read/listened to this is generally not the case. The kind of psychedelic-assisted research that's happening today uses full doses that induce a "spirtual" experience, not microdoses. I'll see if I can dig up actual links but a big source of information I have on this topic is from the fascinating and highly recommended Drug Science podcast:

https://www.drugscience.org.uk/introducing-the-drug-science-...

I remember hearing a conversation in one episode where microdose research was discussed and David Nutt, the UK's foremost neuropsychopharmacologist, said that studying full doses is more efficient from a process perspective. With such stringent rules around scheduled substances any research means a ton of red tape, keeping people under observation for ages, and so on. It's more effective to study administration of a small number of full doses than run a program to analyse a longer course of microdoses. Of course, you could probably study a one-off microdose but given the subtlety of the effects it's probably hard to distinguish the drug effects from other factors. Given the difficulty of studying this stuff at all and the belief that a full dose is necessary it makes sense to try that ahead of microdose research.

Edit: oh, quote from https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30282-8:

"The extensive use of microdosing psychedelics to putatively improve wellbeing and creativity (Kuypers et al., 2019) raises the question of whether a full psychedelic experience is needed. Microdosing involves taking—usually on a regular basis, e.g., 3 times a week—a low dose of a psychedelic that is devoid of subjective psychoactive effects. As yet there have been no trials of microdosing for any psychiatric disorder, and it seems improbable that a single microdose of psilocybin would have as big an effect in depression as the 25 mg psilocybin “macrodose” usually used. Growing evidence suggests the best outcomes from psilocybin are in patients experiencing the most powerful psychedelic effects, variously called breakthrough, peak, or mystical experiences (Roseman et al., 2018b ). [..]"

Also, Michael Pollan's book "How To Change Your Mind" goes into a lot of detail re: the therapeutic process. I'd imagine most clinical processes to be similar to the kind of stuff that happens underground now — full doses, a guide present, care on set/setting etc.

Re: Some doctors, therapists get Health Canada permission to use magic mushrooms

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am bo no means an expert, but from what I have established clinical use is no where near 'tripping' - they use 'micro dosages' which results in a very light amount of cognitive change. You would be as tripped out as you would be getting into a nice warm bath with some smelly salts. A feeling of all is well in the world.

From what I've read/listened to this is generally not the case. The kind of psychedelic-assisted research that's happening today uses full doses that induce a "spirtual" experience, not microdoses. I'll see if I can dig up actual links but a big source of information I have on this topic is from the fascinating and highly recommended Drug Science podcast: https://www.drugscience.org.uk/introducing-the-drug-science-..…

no, microdosing is being researched to treat moderate to severe depression, schizophrenia and epilepsy. a microdose vs a full dose is likened to feeling tipsy vs full blown paralysis, with alcohol. to give a mentally fragile person a mind altering out of body experience is a bad idea
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