Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…
I am a materialist. I agree delusions are powerful mechanism against depression, but most of them, like religion, have awful side effects.
Materialism has plenty of awful side effects like hubris, nihilism, and anti-natalism.
Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…
> that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience I thought the same thing when reading the article, but then I started to wonder how the fuck would you double blind that?
You don’t. It’s fundamentally incompatible. But that’s fine.
People are able to acquire knowledge in ways besides randomized, controlled, double-blind trials. Nearly all knowledge is acquired in some other way. I say this as someone who writes A/B testing software for a living.
>The take-away should not be that ketamine “is just a placebo,” Heifets emphasized. This is the very definition of placebo and why double blind studies are done. The control group and the actual group both improved thinking they got the drug. > In fact, there may be physiological resonance between the placebo effect — in other words, hope — and how ketamine works. This is just mumbo jumbo. There's no 'resonance effec…
This is insane, people are really unwilling to let go the idea that illegal psychoactive drugs may have any beneficial effects for depression.
Illegality is a societal construct, not a medicinal one.
> I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. Ketamine dosed at levels used in a lot of the original depression studies won’t result in anything resembling a “trip”. Many of the more res…
Only in the last 50 years have humans STOPPED tripping because of "saving the children". Before that, for 10s of thousands of years, humans, and animals, have used phsycoactive substances as a way of coping with and processing, reality. Its such a dellusion that humanity has been "pure" at any point in time. Drug prohition, and all its tenticles, is a political tool of mass control. Nothing more, nothing less. Today…
I was with you up until "Its a rediscovery of aincent knowledge". Which, technically yes, but the knowledge is "tripping is fun sometimes".
Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…
> In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering
Are you claiming that there is a soul? Becauae many posit that the brain and thus our experiences are made of matter and energy and as mechanistic as anything else.
Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…
> but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip
I've seen the results ketamine can give first hand, and the dangers of it, but I'm more convinced it may just be getting proper sleep given the connection between sleep apnea and depression.
I would bet that if they engineer a version that does not cause psychosis it will work just as well for the population it does work on. And we should not be quick to dismiss psychosis, it's a major risk factor for violence, something I have also seen first hand.
I just want to endorse this comment. Psychadelic drugs have a miraculous property: they elicit transcendent states reliably . Eat the mushroom and you will experience it. There are corresponding risks to this, of course, but that's the flip side of their utility as a (sharp) tool.
these tools allow exploration of not just introspection but also states that otherwise belong safely behind a closed door. Yes I might actually enjoy having countless shards of the universe's ideas slicing through my ego for a few hours at night over the weekend; no I never want that to experience that during a workday.
Working is overrated and may be part of the problem of having depression in the first place. Maybe we are solving the wrong problem after all. Depression is a signal, it’s evolution whispering that life sucks in some major way. Throwing SSRI at problem silences this voice. But maybe it does and psychodelics fix that, instead of suppressing alerts indefinitely.
Only in the last 50 years have humans STOPPED tripping because of "saving the children". Before that, for 10s of thousands of years, humans, and animals, have used phsycoactive substances as a way of coping with and processing, reality. Its such a dellusion that humanity has been "pure" at any point in time. Drug prohition, and all its tenticles, is a political tool of mass control. Nothing more, nothing less. Today…
I was with you up until "Its a rediscovery of aincent knowledge". Which, technically yes, but the knowledge is "tripping is fun sometimes".
The thread starter argues it's not just fun, but a basic psychological need that we have been ignoring since we stopped "tripping", resulting in an increase in psychological issues.
Simple size of 1, but you're correct in how a heroic dose psilocybin trip completely cured my existential depression, to the extent I can't even relate to the struggles of my past self. It certainly FELT to be a property of the transcendent experience and not a biological side effect of the substance. Being blasted out into the infinite space of all possible chaotic realities but being able to successfully "crawl bac…
If you’d had a crazy life experience that took you to the edge without said product, let’s say a full on mountaineering epic that bought close to the edge, would that remain in your consciousness and alter your being? Perhaps but data would suggest not or it has limited efficacy. There is something within these molecules that combine experiences and some change to alter awareness. And you don’t need to mountaineer
I'm somewhat experienced in mountaineering and have done several dangerous trips that have been incredible and memorable experiences. I would say, firstly, yes they have had a positive impact on my mental health, I have less fear, and the memory of those expeditions make me happy. But, as someone who tripped a lot in their 20s, I would say that trip experiences are just an entirely different "level" of experience to conventional experiences. There's something inherently transcendent in the way psychedelics alter your perception and inner world that you can't experience by mountaineering or extreme sports or what have you. You could argue that it's down to the chemistry, which would be partially true, but I don't think it's entirely mechanical, it's the quality of the experience that's different. I have never been pulled into inner space to meet fantastic beings of light who told me everything was going to be fine during a scrambling experience, nor have I dissolved my experience like a mist into complete, transcendent emptiness and calm at the peak of a mountain. Mostly, I've just been cold, hungry and tired up there :)