Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study • Hacker News Board

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#141

Post by BbzzbB » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #75

henriquemaia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an uncharitable reading. OP is just sharing what works with her/him. Which is ok. From what I understood from your comment, for you it doesn't. Which is ok too, as now you know yourself a bit better. Two personal experiments with very different outcomes. There's no need for moral judgments either way.

Does "if it works for you" also go for things like aspirin, antihistamines, antihypertensives, antibiotics, etc? I've never heard anyone say "if aspirin works for you then take it, but it doesn't work for me". I've only heard this kind of thing said for things like homeopathy, astrology, accupuncture, osteopathy, and microdosing, of course. Hence, I'm very skeptical. [Edit: OK, I've heard people say that aspirin does…

It's really common, AFAIK, in psychiatry. Try this try that, gotta "find the molecule that works for you, we're all different". I believe that is a common occurrence. In my experience when my general practitioner wanted me to try something, it kinda felt like a shot in the dark as to which one we were gonna try, to be reevaluated at a later time if we should go for another.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#142

Post by EricDeb » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #77

Do mushrooms make you write incoherent ramblings on Facebook about how you are God and how everyone else is stuck in the matrix? Because I have 3 different friends who all started doing that after dabbling in psychedelics

i mean.. maybe they're right?

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#143

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

34679 wrote: post #118

yarg wrote: post #3

(It's strange that we're using the term microdose, even in scientific contexts - prefixes have meanings - it should be called a decidose.) Anecdotally, I've had a degree of short term success treating my depression with smallish doses of mushrooms, but I've never had the continuing access required for a microdosing regiment. It'd be nice if the government were willing to come to the table on this, but alas. That said…

I'm of the belief that it should be called a dose. There are many therapeutics that will make you hallucinate if you ingest too much. We call that an overdose.

While others might call that the point.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#144

Post by gwern » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

Note: the 2021 preprint version https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.30.470657v1.... was also extensively discussed, so that is why this might sound familiar.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#145

Post by riekus » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

EmilyHughes wrote: post #20

Been doing it for some months on & off, this shit is legit. Altough 0,5g has me tripping so I rarely dose above 100 milligrams. Get up early, do a workout, take cold shower, meditate and then pop a microdose shrooms, feels great. Microdosing is like steroids for meditation. Especially helpful for the programmer logic types of people like me, gets you out of your head for some time and helps you connect with your emot…

I recommend dosing before your workout, I enjoy my long runs a lot more on micro/thresh

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#146

Post by bnralt » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #127

nine_k wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this may be relevant to the usefulness of microdosing. - Assume that a microdose either improves an outcome, or does nothing. Then, averaged over a large group, such random improvements would lift the group's outcome a little. It's a microdose worth taking. - Assume that a microdose can both improve and worsen the outcome, or have no effect. If the experimental group's averaged results are indistingui…

>This, to me. means that a microdose is a gamble not worth taking. This has always been the problem with psychedelics as a therapeutic approach. It's hard to reconcile being a responsible clinician and recommending a therapy with such mixed and often-negative results. They are in charge of a person's mental well-being in a way that people evangelizing psychedelic therapy don't seem to properly appreciate. If a patien…

I wonder how much of this is true for therapy in general. When I've looked into it, the evidence for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a lot less than I would have expected, and there seems to be some question about how much of its effect is due to the placebo effect. This study on microdosing makes the point that if an experiment isn't double-blind - if the researchers know what is the placebo and what isn't - than this will have an impact on the results (and they seem to think this is the reason their double-blind experiment got different results). But I'm not sure it's possible to have double blind experiments when it comes to therapy (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and would likely make many single-blind studies of therapy appear more useful.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#147

Post by TheAceOfHearts » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #77

Do mushrooms make you write incoherent ramblings on Facebook about how you are God and how everyone else is stuck in the matrix? Because I have 3 different friends who all started doing that after dabbling in psychedelics

Your friends are doing their best to connect with others and share their newfound perspective using whatever crude tools are available to them. Be kind.

Psychedelics give you a new map into reality. If nobody teaches you how to read the map, it's easy to get lost or misread it. Integrating a bunch of different maps can be very challenging.

Charitably, what they probably mean is that if we model god as the sum total of all experiences and all things, then it can be said that we are all aspects of divinity.

The tree recognizes itself as a tree and as part of the forrest.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#148

Post by BossingAround » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

helsinki wrote: post #95

BossingAround wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a daily Kratom user, I would not recommend using Kratom for something like depression. You're treating the symptomps at best while cultivating addiction.

Yeah, always best to not fuck around with chemicals that bind to gabba receptors (alcohol, benzodiazepine, kratom). It will give you a hell of a withdrawal if you take high doses. This is why there are alcoholics.

Kratom binds primarily to mu-opioid receptors. It's a bit disingenuous to say it binds to gabba. I mean, I am sure it is true that some alkaloids in Kratom bind to gabba, but that's not the primary interaction.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#149

Post by peteradio » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

carschno wrote: post #101

EmilyHughes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me I tried all kinds of drugs and psychedelics are not the kind that get you hooked. Stimulants are especially addictive in my opinion. Psychs are the kind of drugs you say I have enough for a while if you overdo. On top of it they build tolerance immediately.

That's hardly a counterargument. GP said you were high all the time, that's different from being addicted. There is some overlap, depending on the substance, but also significant difference. Think of nicotine, caffeine (addictive, but no high) vs psilocybin (high but arguably not addictive).

Microdosing isn't supposed to make you high. OP said they were taking /20 of a high dosing. So the assertion of "being high all the time" is sort of insulting.

Re: Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

#150

Post by BossingAround » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

EmilyHughes wrote: post #126

BossingAround wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Aspirin psychoactive in the same way? I.e. it takes away pain, which influences your psyche in an obvious way.

You could argue that. there is no clear line of course, but most people would agree that a beer influences them more than aspirin or an antibiothic.

I see. To me, it is not very useful to talk about "psychoactive" substances, since sugar, caffeine, or nicotine are also "psychoactive". I would recommend the term "entheogens" in your original post.