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How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

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Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#111

Post by nikisweeting »

josh2600 wrote: post #54

I have friends who have done both Ayahuasca and DMT. Ayahuasca seems to be much longer acting and more intense when administered correctly (but a lot of it seems to be set and setting). DMT has two variants, the n-n and the 5-meo. Friends report the n-n to be much more visual and the 5-Meo to be more physical. 5-Meo has been known to cause seizures at high doses. I think both of these compounds raise your blood press…

DMT and 5-meo-DMT are fundamentally different experiences, phenomenologically they're further apart than LSD is to Psilocybin.

If you're listing those two together you better also list 5-MEO-DiPT, 5-MEO-DALT, 5-MEO-AMT, 4-HO-DMT, 4-HO-MET, 4-HO-MIPT, etc. there are many many in the tryptamine family with fundamentally different subjective experiences.

https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Tryptamine_(compound) https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Substituted_tryptamines

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#112

Post by froh »

ipnon wrote: post #14

2.3% requiring medical attention is surprisingly high. This seems orders of magnitude higher than classic psychedelics. It is likely this is greater than simply combining DMT and an MAOI.

it was self-reported data covering anything from diy via western clinical setting to trip to the amazonas:

> The researchers analyzed data from an online Global Ayahuasca Survey that ran from 2017–2019, recruiting 10,836 respondents from over 50 countries.

"requiring medical attention" includes any and all "felt bad, called ambulance or doc" scenarios

> Approximately 2.3% of the participants reported that they required medical attention for any adverse effects. “These results are consistent with previous studies, with regular users reporting that most adverse physical effects seem to not be serious and do not compromise health,” Perkins and colleagues explain.

and the paragraph right before states that nausea and headaches and drowsiness are expected and consistent with previous studies.

So what exactly is the message of extracting just this number, without that context?

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#113

Post by IIAOPSW »

Trasmatta wrote: post #56
IIAOPSW wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to dismiss your experience here, in fact I'm sure its all accurate, but I must make the curious observation that I don't seem to get the distortion of emotional state so many others seem to have on psychedelics (be it positive or negative). I get all the other distortions. Time is skewed, vision gets geometric patterns, stream of consciousness becomes more of an unnavigable white water rapids of consci…

> Perhaps a normal person would be scared seeing a friends face morph into a demonic figure, but I just find myself asking "why his face and not everyone's face?" and then proceed to systematically look at faces for what feels like hours On some drugs, dosages, and settings, you can lose all concept of what a "face" is. Or even what "is" is. All I knew was pain, suffering, torment, spinning, and eternity.

I'm not denying that its possible to lose all concept of a "face" or even know what "is" is and to only be left with pain, suffering, spinning and eternity. On the contrary, I find it to be an immensely scientifically valuable observation that you lost all concept of a face, didn't know what "is" is and only knew pain, suffering, spinning and eternity. Just knowing that you end up with that experience and other people do not tells us something insightful about which sorts of brain function are universally hard wired and which parts can differ from person to person.

Maybe it is possible to sidestep the badness you experienced by trying to focus on scientific self experimentation like I end up doing. Maybe that's just not possible for you for neuro-physical reasons. If you ever decide to trip again, try it and let us know if it works.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#114

Post by macrolime »

vga805 wrote: post #70

Ayahuasca ceremonies are among the most profound, cherished experiences of my life. I prepare for months before partaking in them to make sure my emotional, physical, and spiritual health is in a good place. And I can't imagine taking this drug without being under the care of experienced guides. I also wouldn't recommend it for anyone except those who really desire to push the limits of their mind. Some trips have fe…

There's been scientific studies on whether people can get "machine elves" to tell them some actual factual information that they didn't already know.

In all of the studied cases the things that were told by the "machine elves" was either something that got verified as false/made up or something the user already knew.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#115

Post by bheadmaster »

nso wrote: post #104
quechimba wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They exist. Shamans work with different spirits and even have names for ones they work with. I was skeptical in the beginning but it's a different reality. Just because we can't normally see them doesn't mean they don't exist. I don't see spirits most times I drink, but I once had a gecko-like plant spirit climbing all over me... I often see beautiful patterns and landscapes. It's an amazing medicine. It cured my dep…

You seeing something when on strong drugs that you can't see when not is not strong evidence for its existence.

Depends on how you define "existence".

In general, we define existence in context of consistence of stimulus with everyday experience, including other people's reports of experience. Dreams are very rarely consistent with each other, so we know they're dreams. But imagine if every time you went to sleep, you woke up in a "dreamworld" with all the experience sequentially consistent with your previous dreams. How would you know that the "dream" is the dream, and that the real world is the real world?

I'm not saying that hallucinations are real - I strongly believe the opposite. But I can see such how powerful and consistent hallucinations could make the person believe in their existence, especially if combined with low life satisfaction/self-esteem and strong desire to feel special in some sort of way, to know something that the "unenlightened" don't, or to be a part of something. It's a similar mechanism to one that makes people join religions - psychedelic experiences have a lot in common with religious experiences. One could also hypothesize that religion was invented when humans found psychedelics, and couldn't explain their effects.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#116

Post by suction »

vga805 wrote: post #70

Ayahuasca ceremonies are among the most profound, cherished experiences of my life. I prepare for months before partaking in them to make sure my emotional, physical, and spiritual health is in a good place. And I can't imagine taking this drug without being under the care of experienced guides. I also wouldn't recommend it for anyone except those who really desire to push the limits of their mind. Some trips have fe…

No post body was provided.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#117

Post by suction »

sanjayio wrote: post #108
vga805 wrote: post #70

Ayahuasca ceremonies are among the most profound, cherished experiences of my life. I prepare for months before partaking in them to make sure my emotional, physical, and spiritual health is in a good place. And I can't imagine taking this drug without being under the care of experienced guides. I also wouldn't recommend it for anyone except those who really desire to push the limits of their mind. Some trips have fe…

Genuinely curious how the ceremonies have materially changed your life.

No post body was provided.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#118

Post by nikisweeting »

Trasmatta wrote: post #16

Bad trips are a real risk with all psychedelics. I don't like the attitude in psychedelic communities that there's "no such thing as a bad trip, only a challenging one". I had a couple bad trips. It felt like living in hell for a literal eternity. It's almost impossible to describe the agony that the human mind is capable of experiencing. It's absurd how much suffering the human mind can experience. The main message…

I've had painfully horrific bad trips that lasted for eternity but none have seemed to have any lasting downsides. If anything they build my confidence in my own psyche because I can endure them and come out fine on the other side / can now approach them with confidence and usually de-escalate the horror during the trip.

Not for everyone but I don't mind the occasional challenging/painful trip.

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#119

Post by nikisweeting »

8note wrote: post #74
estevaoam wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to hear that. You might find very useful this EP about meditation from Andrew Huberman: https://youtu.be/wTBSGgbIvsY It’s the first time I saw someone differentiating different types of meditation and it seems to match your experience. Basically, we can either exercise and build up our focus to our internal state and bodily sensations OR do the same but focusing externally. The interesting thing is that so…

The alternative is: now that you've found this anxiety you have, you should challenge it, and work on root causing, mitigating, and resolving it. I get super anxious about doing anything I haven't done in a while, but falling off the bike solves the fear of falling off the bike real fast. For me, at least

This is a beautiful quote: "falling off the bike solves the fear of falling off the bike real fast". Thanks!

Re: How safe is ayahuasca? Large-scale study explores

#120

Post by koonsolo »

I always find it surprising that so many people here have such a positive attitude towards drugs.

I never touched it, am very happy about it, and hope my kids stay far away from it.

I know people who did all kinds of drugs, and nothing positive ever came out of that. Sorry that's just my opinion.

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