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Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

medicalxpress.com

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Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#71

Post by lhnz »

edtechre wrote: post #63
pyre wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what actually makes a difference in life? Taking action makes a difference in life. People don't take action just for its own sake. They have motivations. Where do this motivations come from? Ultimately the mind. The mind can be influenced by books and general knowledge, as well as experiences. Do you contest that if one did the same thing twice (once on drugs, the other not) that those experiences would d…

You could claim the same about getting high off of glue since that affects the mind too. Seriously, what every day experience /doesn't/ affect your mind? My point stands on its own. Taking action makes a difference, dropping acid does nothing for anyone. End.

So your argument is that (1) since every drug/substance/experience affects your mind everything is the same, (2) consuming something does not create so therefore has no utility to anybody: the only utility is 'taking action'.

These points do not stand on their own. Everything might affect your mind but that doesn't mean that every experience is the same. Consuming something may not make a difference to other people's lives, but it might give direct utility to yourself (for example eating food, drinking water, reading a book, watching a film.) This article was about an increase in openness. If you become more open as a result of doing something then indirectly your future actions might hold more utility to the people that you affect.

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#72

Post by lusr »

Tsagadai wrote: post #59
lusr wrote: post #40

'Nearly all of the participants in the new study considered themselves spiritually active (participating regularly in religious services, prayer or meditation).' ... 'In the study, the change occurred specifically in those volunteers who had undergone a "mystical experience,"... He defines "mystical experience" as among other things, "a sense of interconnectedness with all people and things accompanied by a sense of…

It is pretty common to read or hear about spiritual, religious or mystical experiences even from ardent atheists under hallucinogens. That evidence raises a very interesting philosophical question.

It is common to you. But who are you? And therein lies the rub.

Anecdotal evidence isn't useful when it comes to research like this: I feel that the experimental design is flawed by not balancing out this very significant variable to be representative of the population at large (estimates vary, but the non-religious make up from 2-20% of the population depending who you ask and how you define the question).

My experience is that a significant portion of people in the world do not identify themselves as spiritually active and that people these people do not have such "mystical experiences", whether exposed to hallucinogenics or not.

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#73

Post by lusr »

Alex3917 wrote: post #54
lusr wrote: post #40

'Nearly all of the participants in the new study considered themselves spiritually active (participating regularly in religious services, prayer or meditation).' ... 'In the study, the change occurred specifically in those volunteers who had undergone a "mystical experience,"... He defines "mystical experience" as among other things, "a sense of interconnectedness with all people and things accompanied by a sense of…

"So they took a bunch of people prone to mystical experiences and found when you give them hallucinogenics that they have further mystical experiences?" The people they recruit aren't really much more prone to mystical experiences than anyone else, they're just trying to find volunteers who are psychologically stable and have a support network in case things go poorly.

How did you infer this?

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#74

Post by lusr »

astrofinch wrote: post #38
aheilbut wrote: post #18

I don't doubt it, but reading a book may make a lasting personality change too.

What book do you estimate has the greatest probability of causing lasting personality change?

"Feeling Good" by David Burns. Sounds like a pop-psych title, but it is not. At 28 years of age, I am fairly certain this is the most important book I have ever and will ever read in my entire life (but then I desperately needed it - it is the user's manual to my brain that has allowed me to debug so much of my problematic thought processes).

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#75

Post by puredemo »

edtechre wrote: post #62
mistermann wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edt....I respect your opinion, but I would respect it even more if you had experienced even once what people are discussing here. From the way you write, I know you haven't. If you have been through it, it's up to you to judge whether it is good or bad, for overall society, or even at the individual level. But as it is, you simply don't know what you're talking about. We have a word in our vocabulary: transcendental…

Nowhere did I say I support the war on drugs, prohibition, or any such rubbish. You are free to engage in whatever stupid activity you so choose. Just don't try to claim it was some kind of fulfilling accomplishment, when it was merely shallow recreation.

Why would you feel it's so important to belittle someone else's experience as "merely shallow recreation" when they obviously feel it meant more than that?

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#76

Post by puredemo »

veidr wrote: post #47

Many smart people I know try to work in a trip on mushrooms once a year or so. Many of them are folks who don't generally even smoke weed or drink regularly, which surprised me. I think it is a good idea, and I try to do it, too. But, I have a healthy respect for the potential downside of a psilocybin experience, too. Many years ago, I ate some shrooms before a concert at the L.A. Coliseum. There were some thuggish t…

Yeah, that is definitely the wrong sort of environment to do them in.

Camping with best friends is a better environment.

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#78

Post by Triumvark »

The phrase "measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory" jumps out at me. What does that really mean?

Myers-Briggs is 'widely used' and proponents would probably argue it has been 'empirically validated' (by this one study no one can reproduce...). Myers-Briggs still lacks the "retest reliability" necessary for this sort of analysis.

In fact, in most personality tests, you'd expect wild swings in personality without drugs, even by just waiting a day.

Stop right here. Go watch Ben Goldacre on "Bad Science:" http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.h...

Now, stop giving any attention to campy press release results. I don't even really disagree with the thesis here, but without a full description of the methods, and probably a metanalysis of previous work in this field, the 'canned results' buzzers should be ringing loudly in all of our heads.

Re: Single psilocybin dose may make lasting personality change

#80

Post by Angostura »

bherms wrote: post #9

Psilocybin use definitely changed me for the better. The first time I did it was one of the most eye-opening and impacting experiences in my life. Since my first trip, I've tried to work it into my life at least 1-2 times a year. Every time I feel like I learn something new and/or come out a better person by seeing certain aspects of life in a new light. It's something you only want to try in controlled environments…

Is that your perception, or do the people around you, able to give an unbiased opinion concur?

Afterall I'm not entirely convinced that my heartfelt conviction of alchohol's beneficial effects on my singing are universally shared.

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