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Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

theguardian.com

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Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#61

Post by AnimalMuppet »

neom wrote: post #49
jacquesm wrote: post #37

I've seen two people go down the Ayahuasca path in the past years and both of them have undergone such profound personality changes that I've had to stop seeing them. They've gone off the deep end in ways that are hard to describe. What also bothers me is that they've become incessant advocates for others to join them in their misery.

Integration work is really important. Many people don't have the help they need to integrate their experience back into regular reality unfortunately. It's a shame, because the effects can be profoundly helpful, but meaningless if you can't continue to function in society. Many people try to bend every day life to a perceivable achievement of a new way of living for "us all". It's normal to realize certain relationsh…

> Integration work is really important. Many people don't have the help they need to integrate their experience back into regular reality unfortunately.

It depends on what epistemological status you assign to the experiences of the trip. If the trip is access to a different part of you, or a different truth than you normally know, then integrating it is very valuable.

But if it's just random weird things that your neurons do while being poisoned, why bother to integrate it? Should I integrate the experience of having a stroke or a migraine? (On the other hand, in that case why bother to have the trip at all?)

And, is there any reason to suppose that poisoning your neurons should be a source of truth, or even of access to "a different part of you"?

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#62

Post by piyh »

alfor wrote: post #20
IIAOPSW wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe whats happening at a certain level all brains encode an abstract conscious reality-stream in a similar way, and as such distortions to the brain manifest in similar ways for everyone. The fact that DMT entities are so common tells us that the perception of other consciousness's is a primitive attribute in however our world-state is managed by the brain. Flip a few random bits in an image, you get pixels. Fl…

I entertain the idea that spirits are real in a similar sense that our consciousness is real. Spirit is an emergent property of humans. When we are angry and vengeful the "spirit" of war is possessing "us". We are not our former self and lose quite a bit of control. This spirit is eternal, contagious, cross cultures. Our ancestors put a name and images on something abstract but we discarded it because it didn’t fit o…

The fact that schizophrenics can get together and agree that they're all being gang stalked puts serious doubt in my mind that machine elves from DMT are anything close to real.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#63

Post by axpvms »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #24
462436347 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that these Elves never seem to provide any useful, actionable information, especially information that their human interlocutor would have had no way of knowing. Instead it's just vague, mystical fluff.

One take on psychedelics I find intriguing is that instead of providing actual deep insights, they simulate it. While you are high, everything just seems profound and mystical, but there is really nothing there, it is an artifact of the distorted brain chemistry. I find this makes sense because in my experience, people that regularly take psychedelics do not seem wiser or more insightful to me than people who don't.…

Just spitballing and I have no particular expertise.

I do not have experience with Ayahausca, but I do have experience with Psylocibin, LSD, Ketamine, Salvia Divinorum, and a few other things. Psychedelics disrupt the Default Mode Network (this has been shown in brain imaging studies), which the brain process which covers internally directed thought, self-reflection, self-criticism, etc, and that this disruption appears to be what helps many people overcome ingrained patterns of negative thinking.

The trouble appears to be that this state of epiphany following a psychedelic experience is not permanent, I have heard figures of six months following a psylocibin experience. Therefore, to keep achieving this affect repeated doses would be needed which may have a negative effect, further studies may tell. However it may provide time window to allow other treatments to work, in the same sense that antidepressants are supposed to be paired with therapy.

I'd always heard that psychedelic experience provides similar effects to a deep meditative experience and thought "well, who wants to do that boring meditation when you can just take a magic potion and be done with it" ? However, meditative and mindfulness practices, for those it helps, would seem to be far more sustainable than any drugs. I have lately been reading The Craving Mind by Judson Brewer, and the RAIN (Recognise, Acknowledge, Investigate, Note) framework it prescribes has been useful in reducing negative ruminations and undesired cravings.

Currently I am completely sober from all substances and am using mindfulness and meditative practice to find a more sustainable path to peace within myself. I have no desire to take any substance which would jeopardise this.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#64

Post by neom »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #61
neom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integration work is really important. Many people don't have the help they need to integrate their experience back into regular reality unfortunately. It's a shame, because the effects can be profoundly helpful, but meaningless if you can't continue to function in society. Many people try to bend every day life to a perceivable achievement of a new way of living for "us all". It's normal to realize certain relationsh…

> Integration work is really important. Many people don't have the help they need to integrate their experience back into regular reality unfortunately. It depends on what epistemological status you assign to the experiences of the trip. If the trip is access to a different part of you, or a different truth than you normally know, then integrating it is very valuable. But if it's just random weird things that your ne…

Do you believe it's possible to have a "passive" ayahuasca experience? I don't know the answer. Should you work to integrate having a stroke, probably, a migraine... maybe, as much as smoking a joint? Maybe? I'm not sure.

I think the point being any altered sense of perception of routine in regular reality warrants some introspection, the +/- probably depends on how profound it is? You points are good. different part of you, who knows, some people say you're re-tuning the bring to access new vibrations that show alternative realities and dimensions. Lots of big questions here! :)

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#65

Post by oigursh »

optimalsolver wrote: post #38
462436347 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that these Elves never seem to provide any useful, actionable information, especially information that their human interlocutor would have had no way of knowing. Instead it's just vague, mystical fluff.

You'll find this article very relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

This is what I come to HN for. Thank you.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#66

Post by hombre_fatal »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #26
sva_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome experience report, but > it seems the reason it lasted so long is because I couldn’t vomit in the first place, so the “medecine” stayed with me longer I highly doubt that, it was probably metabolized and out of your system in a few days max. What you describe are classical "afterglow" symptoms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterglow_(drug_culture)

Afterglow is a layman's term but tells you nothing of the science. After the high does of amines (serotonin analog) which results in a drastic change serotonin receptor densities. It takes a while fro these receptors densities to return to normal. DMT behaves as an agonist at both 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors. There is nothing more to the magic than that. P.S. I have the same experience as being on DMT and I do not ta…

Being able to dip into an experience at one’s leisure is worlds different than being stuck with that experience due to a long term condition.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#68

Post by FollowingTheDao »

hnthrway wrote: post #32
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, using this drug to break down the compartments of the brain will lead to increased creativity (which is all hallucinations are, daydreaming on overload), it will not last. And the more you use DMT the more you will need for the same effect.

Why do you think that you need more for the same effect? Everything I've read states that ayahuasca doesn't induce tolerance

DMT acts on the HTR2A and HTR2C receptors. When you activate HTR2C receptors at high levels the nerves respond by changing the number HTR2C receptors. This is called having an "effect of receptor density".

You can read about it in this study: (I know what you are going to say, that this proves one cannot get habituated to DMT But that is wrong adn you will need to read the second study to understand why.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00913...

Because drug efficacy changes with receptor density and cellular microenvironment, we also examined the properties of DMT in native preparations using a behavioral and biochemical approach."

One difference was evident in that the 5-HT2C, but not the 5-HT2A, receptor showed a profound desensitization to DMT over time. This difference is interesting in light of the recent report that the hallucinogenic activity of DMT does not tolerate in humans and suggests the 5-HT2C receptor plays a less prominent role in the action of DMT.

https://www.cureus.com/articles/62522-5-ht1a-and-5-ht2a-sign...

Furthermore, abnormal receptor density ratios are strongly associated with positive and negative symptom severity, which are typically assessed using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms

In addition, Hurlemann et al. (2007) proposed that 5-HT2A receptor density was also decreased in the At-Risk Mental State patient subgroup, regardless of conversion to psychosis [4]. The progressive decline in subcortical 5-HT2A receptor density could provide an indicator of conversion to schizophrenia.

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#69

Post by FollowingTheDao »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #66
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afterglow is a layman's term but tells you nothing of the science. After the high does of amines (serotonin analog) which results in a drastic change serotonin receptor densities. It takes a while fro these receptors densities to return to normal. DMT behaves as an agonist at both 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors. There is nothing more to the magic than that. P.S. I have the same experience as being on DMT and I do not ta…

Being able to dip into an experience at one’s leisure is worlds different than being stuck with that experience due to a long term condition.

Why? I mean I can make up all the stories I want, right? I can call myself a shaman or a mystic, but no one cares. But you get McKenna tripping out wholly on drugs and somehow he is special and knows everything?

I know my worth but no one cares, they will not listen to me because of my overly creative mind. Very few people here can understand the connection I make.

It made me a better person because it had to. It forced me to self reflect. Why do you all need drugs to do that?

Re: Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans

#70

Post by FollowingTheDao »

lalopalota wrote: post #50
CommitSyn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. What are you on disability for? Surely not for using DMT...

Sounds like they are on disability because they experience DMT-like effects without taking DMT.

Yes. I have schizo-affective bipolar disorder and I often have hallucinations.
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