81–90 of 324 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In cases where depression is caused by whackadoodle brain chemistry, this might actually be a completely reasonable answer.
We don't know whackadoodle brain chemistry from Adam; it's a massive assumption to attribute depression towards something so misunderstood as our neurochemistry. You might as well say it's due to the phlogiston in our heads.
I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she described it as though her mind's harddrive had been defragmented. Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the ma…
I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.
It is a crime that they've been locked away for so long due to Nixon and scare mongers. So many people in jail because of it. Legalize it already, sheesh.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Measures to contain COVID-19 exist globally and if you have great cosmic insight into the fact that they don't work, perhaps you could share that instead of sarcasm without any basis.
They are saying they do work, but only when they are implemented. They are unimplemented when the numbers get low, which causes them to go back up, and has the effect of starting the cycle again.
They're wrong, but that's what they're saying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.
In what way were their minds ruined?
Some disassociatives are often put into the "psychedelic," and they can cause addiction. Ketamine begin an example. People begin chasing the previous high, which often means higher doses and more money.
Some more ignorant people put MDMA (and family) of drugs into this category as well. These drugs are highly neurotoxic, and require a lot of "prep" to take to reduce their neurotoxicity (it's arguable to what degree this prep helps). Moreover frequent user of this can in some people (ie people succeptible to depression) cause a long-term disbalance in their serotonin system (some people take weeks to recover from even one usage).
People who have some mental "precondition" (eg such as psychosis, etc) can have some extremely severe response and permanent "side effects" (for a lackeof better expressions) from psychedelics, and never recover.
An extremely small percentage of people have what's called Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD). Some people find it fun, some don't mind it, while some can't function because of it.
Quality of substance you acquire can also vary. On the black market things are often mislabelled or cut with other substances that are easier/cheaper to produce. One notable examples is NBOMe being sold as LSD. NBOMe is more dangerous for a few reasons that I won't be getting into in this post. Always test your stuff with test kits, or if you're not comfortable with that, sense a small bit of your batch to a testing lab (there's a few anonymous/free ones in Europe).
Lastly, there's always ignorance or risk of being too "casual" about taking psychedelic due to familiarity with them. This leads to accidental drug combinations (eg some antidepressants + some psychedelics) don't combined well. Aimee just diminished the other, but people reported more severe symptoms. People also combine things recreationally without researching things properly, which can be a bad combo. Speaking of antidepressants and psychedelics: a notable thing to mention is that Lithium salts and LSD have been reported to lead to terors, seizures, and maybe even death (as reported on erowid).
I'm not trying to discourage or encourage people from psychedelics. In my personal experience, they can be wonderful and provide healing experiences. However, we need to always be careful when using them, because they have such a profound effect on our minds, and we still understand so little about the mind itself. With that in mind (no pun intended), treat them with respect they deserve!
The study was just published in the most prestigious medical journal in the world [1]. Whatever you think of the study, this is rather significant. If you told me even 2 years ago there would be a randomised trial of magic mushrooms in NEJM, I would not have believed it for even a second. One point not to miss is that they screened 1000 patients to come up with the study population of 59. Nevertheless, I consider the…
"If you told me even 2 years ago there would be a randomised trial of magic mushrooms in NEJM, I would not have believed it for even a second." In a lot of ways, that's completely depressing for how slowly we've come as a species.
I don’t want to live in a world where the solution to depression (caused by governments, politicians, or general existence in the modern capitalist world) is a drug. Not a good idea. Instead, figure out why depression has increased so dramatically in the last ~century and address that.
has it? Were our current guidelines to diagnose depressive episodes with around a century ago?
It seems the design of this study is questionable. Since they couldn't blind the psylocybin group from the effect, they gave 1mg daily to the SSRI group. Basically it's a study that compares psylocybin with SSRI + psylocybin micro dosing. They claim that the micro dose don't have an effect, but there is not a large body of evidence to support that claim.
Wouldn't the study design under exaggerate the effect of psilocybin, if anything?
I don’t want to live in a world where the solution to depression (caused by governments, politicians, or general existence in the modern capitalist world) is a drug. Not a good idea. Instead, figure out why depression has increased so dramatically in the last ~century and address that.
I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she described it as though her mind's harddrive had been defragmented. Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the ma…
I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.
Are psychedelics connected to dreaming? I mean, maybe dreams are supposed to somehow reset or recalibrate brains, but on some people it's not working for some reason. Also, there's a connection of what you eat and what you dream, so my wild hypothesis is that gut bacteria is responsible for recalibrating your brain during sleep. There's also quite strong evidence for correlation between gut bacteria and mental health…