Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

journals.sagepub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 120 posts

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#101

Post by jasonm23 »

epilys wrote: post #41
andy_ppp wrote: post #24

N of one but my friend (who always saw the world as very black and white) killed herself not long after doing Ayahuasca. I’m pretty sure it contributed to her death, she became an extreme fantasist about judgement and god, not a formalised religion but a personified fantasy with crazed rules and vengeances. It was not good.

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm not a medical practitioner but it sounds like the experience triggered a psychotic "break" in your friend? It's a sad but real possibility with psychedelics that more people should be aware of.

The problem is that even among large socially connected groups who are into psychedelics, the event of someone having a psychotic break is often rare to none.

Whereas in other groups a cascade effect sometimes happens and many people in such groups can experience mental health issues, and trauma.

There's that common call to examine "set and setting" but it's often a crap-shoot, due to the chaotic number of variables.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#102

Post by mathgladiator »

vunderba wrote: post #98
rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

100%. Ask any one of these people to quantify how their view on reality changed and it'll be vague transcendentalist talking points and hand waving around things like something something spiritualism, something something deeper connection with nature, something something cosmic holographic kaleidoscopic reality. On par with new age crystal healing and chakra points.

How does one quantify a conversation with a transdimensional being?

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#103

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

fakeart wrote: post #89
rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

They say such things of travel too. “It will forever change how you see the world, international travel.”

I hope it's overstated cause damn do I not really feel like traveling. It's just a lot of work.

I'll probably travel a little within the US but in the space of therapy stuff, I'd much rather accept that I'm simply not a travel person, than actually bother traveling.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#104

Post by AnarchismIsCool »

matrix87 wrote: post #96
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #11

You know when you see HN discussion on some subjects where you have significant background and it's hyper cringe? Psychology/neurology is one of those areas where the community's commentary is almost always extremely...factually challenged. Be very careful making health decisions based off of HN comments. Lots of people with strong agendas and weak subject matter knowledge. Also, be careful not to over-estimate your…

What's going to happen if we don't listen to your red-lettered life advice? Are we going to spontaneously combust?

Shrug...probably...

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#105

Post by Centigonal »

vunderba wrote: post #98
rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

100%. Ask any one of these people to quantify how their view on reality changed and it'll be vague transcendentalist talking points and hand waving around things like something something spiritualism, something something deeper connection with nature, something something cosmic holographic kaleidoscopic reality. On par with new age crystal healing and chakra points.

There are plenty of people who talk about how psychedelics helped them integrate and move past traumatic experiences, kick addictions, and come to terms with difficult truths like the mortality of themselves or their loved ones. The transcendental and indescribable is part of the experience for sure, but there's plenty of evidence for psychedelic experiences creating concrete, durable, quantifiable changes in worldview and behavior. MAPS (https://maps.org) has done fantastic work to compile literature reviews for the scientific studies that demonstrate these outcomes.

I'm not saying that psychedelics are for everyone, or that anyone should take them on a whim and without preparation. However, it's just incorrect to equate their ability to change people's lives for the better to crystal healing or similar.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#106

Post by ramblerman »

reify wrote: post #49

I am nearly 70 years old. I have been taking psychedelics for 50 over years. I am retired psychotherapist and I do not have a predisposition to mental ill health. I was also a substance misuse worker and methadone dispenser for over 10 years. I gave up smoking hash when I was 40 years old. I did notice that with the introduction of skunk and the increase of up to 20% more Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), there were more a…

given your long experience with psychedelics and profession, I am curious.

Do you feel a "hero's" dose is necessary, or do you see benefit in micro dosing psychedelics. Or any dose in between for that matter.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#107

Post by lewispollard »

vunderba wrote: post #98
rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

100%. Ask any one of these people to quantify how their view on reality changed and it'll be vague transcendentalist talking points and hand waving around things like something something spiritualism, something something deeper connection with nature, something something cosmic holographic kaleidoscopic reality. On par with new age crystal healing and chakra points.

Just because a subjective experience is ineffable and difficult to describe adequately doesn't mean it's nonsense. It's convenient to lump those things all together, but it's not accurate.

After all, asking someone what it was like to stand at the top of a mountain they'd just climbed, admiring the view, you're likely to get similar "hand-waving" answers about connection to something bigger than them, but you probably wouldn't argue that climbing a mountain and taking in the view is a worthless experience that amounts to nonsense.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#108

Post by morbicer »

holoduke wrote: post #45
rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

An illusive broken firmware it is. Better stay sober. Also when learning new things being sober is better. You wont get your phd using drugs. You wont get your brains to a new state using drugs. You maybe think you do, but thats a illusional defect of your brains when using drugs. Stay sober.

Douglas Engelbart - inspired by LSD to invent computer mouse

Steve Jobs stated LSD was “one of the two or three most important things I ever did in my life”

Francis Crick saw the double helix of DNA on LSD

Kary Banks Mullis, the biochemist who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his improvements to the polymerase chain reaction technique: “It [LSD] was certainly much more important than any courses I ever took.”

Ralph Abraham claimed the insights he had while on psychedelics such as LSD profoundly influenced the development of his mathematical theories.

And there's more and I am not even mentioning that most artists are using something.

So yeah, if you can get Nobel prize you can definitely get PhD. You do you, I don't know what you have achieved but don't claim you posses some universal truth.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#109

Post by bennyhill »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #103
fakeart wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say such things of travel too. “It will forever change how you see the world, international travel.”

I hope it's overstated cause damn do I not really feel like traveling. It's just a lot of work. I'll probably travel a little within the US but in the space of therapy stuff, I'd much rather accept that I'm simply not a travel person, than actually bother traveling.

No one wants to talk about all the downsides of trips that include leaving the house.. It's almost like a sizable portion of GDP has been taken over by an industry of vultures that need to fight any cleaner, safer more environmental alternative that might be successful by word of mouth alone.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#110

Post by mensetmanusman »

shric wrote: post #100
vunderba wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. Ask any one of these people to quantify how their view on reality changed and it'll be vague transcendentalist talking points and hand waving around things like something something spiritualism, something something deeper connection with nature, something something cosmic holographic kaleidoscopic reality. On par with new age crystal healing and chakra points.

I'm an extreme materialist, I don't believe in gods or spirits or anything of the sort. I don't even believe in the magic some people call "free will". I first tried LSD about 10 years ago and have taken various forms of psychedelics once or twice a year since. Some of them were, without a doubt, the most profound experiences of my life. You're right about the vague transcendentalist nonsense. The problem is there ar…

As a materialist, do you believe in laws of physics?
Post reply on HN