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Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

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Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 147 in 3 years is "a meaningful amount of people" then we're gonna need to ban a lot of other stuff to stay consistent.

Like lakes, for example.

Bathtubs.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#43

How is this different from escaping problems through drug use?

Because the kind of drug use you're thinking of means addiction to a substance (one that typically numbs you or makes you feel unnaturally happy). Here he's discussing about people improving their condition after a single dose.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.

The problem here is acceptance of one’s mortality. What solution do you propose?

Accept it fully.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#45
post #3

I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if not ever. Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change your mind" (Netflix documentary). h…

What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as in e.g. vipassana does not? They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a problematic one. If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep. What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals, that we co…

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Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#46
post #3

I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if not ever. Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change your mind" (Netflix documentary). h…

Psychdelics can and do kill meaningful amount of people, almost exclusively due to injuries while under their affects. 147 psychedelic deaths over three years - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523208/ I'll have to find a youtube video but there's a good one with one of the psychdelic guru's describing a trip where had mis-dosed (he didn't realize the mushrooms he was consuming were significantly stronge…

The paper you linked does not say what you claim it says.

Instead, it appears to investigate psychoactive drug deaths not to do with overdose.

There appear to be no "traditional" psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, etc) covered here _at all_ except perhaps one death categorized as a "hallucinogen", which is definitely a lot less than 100% of the 147 deaths investigated.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.

How do you solve stage 4 terminal cancer?

My parent was diagnosed with stage 4. We tried to help and ultimately we all accepted death was near.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.

How do you solve stage 4 terminal cancer?

The problem to be solved in this case is unnecessary distress and pain about one's inevitable death.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#49
post #3

I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if not ever. Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change your mind" (Netflix documentary). h…

What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as in e.g. vipassana does not? They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a problematic one. If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep. What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals, that we co…

> What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as in e.g. vipassana does not?

I actually don't think it's worth comparing the two. They achieve a similar end goal depending on your intentionality but I don't think it's fruitful to say one is better than the other.

> They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a problematic one.

Psychedelics certainly have a higher ability to be abused. People need to be educated on looking at their family mental health history, they need an informed trip sitter, and they need to be well informed on what the experience will entail.

On the other hand, how many guru cults that incorporate meditation as a form of psychological warfare and isolation have we witnessed in our lifetimes? The people who are casually allowed to walk around and profess themselves as prophets or gurus is highly adjacent to the consequences of ill-informed ego death and return in the psychedelic space.

> If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep

Psilocybin, LSD, and DMT are nothing like dreaming. They're very vivid experiences. They can rip you out of your rooting in this reality which is why, imo, they're not good to do unless you have an informed trip sitter who can ensure your mental, emotional, and physical safety. That's what also makes them powerful teachers in the way of perspective; imo, it's not that you're "unlocking secrets to the universe" during a trip, moreso you've been granted a perspective outside of your sense of self that is difficult to achieve otherwise. Depending on the dose it could also be total dissolution of the ego. These things wear off, of course, but someone who can help you do a "soft landing" in the case where you run into some trauma makes a huge difference. The things you process afterward are where "the work" is done.

> What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals, that we couldn't otherwise?

You could meditate until your ego dies and likely achieve many of the same machinations from what I've read from peoples testimonies. Again, the work isn't done during meditation, it's how you decompose your experience and incorporate it into your life later. Psychedelics are the same, just a different mechanism that you cannot choose to say "I'm done" halfway through.

Re: Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is acceptance of one’s mortality. What solution do you propose?

Accept it fully.

Quite. How do you propose to do that?

And more importantly, how do you propose people who struggle to do this reach that acceptance?

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