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Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

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Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#131

Post by travisjungroth »

f69281c wrote: post #40
trabant00 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been microdosing psilocybin daily for the past six months [...] I didn't get COVID and I feel a lot more switched on and focused You lost your causation vs correlation sense though :)

The self-reported positive effects hallucinogens are awful. They alter your perception so your perception of perceived benefits is unreliable, and anyone who's not tripping can tell you that. I mean, with full doses the reported benefits are things like connecting with the thread of the universe and speaking across planes to dimensional beings that inform you that we're all one, but the word fractal is jammed in ther…

If someone is impaired to drive they are by definition not microdosing. The equivalent to alcohol would be like a quarter of a beer.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#132

Post by travisjungroth »

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #37
BrianOnHN wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What size micro dose? Personally, I've concluded I cannot be productive with even as little as 100-200mg of cubes.

mcg, I presume. But 200mcg is a really high dose. 10-20 would be a microdose for most. I hope you test your stuff and have the right potency because your comment doesn't sound right.

They’re talking about milligrams of cubensis mushrooms (cubes) not micrograms of LSD.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#133

Post by filoeleven »

erikerikson wrote: post #86
netcan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you say, there are risks and benefits. "How" matters a lot. I think you exaggerate though. A lot of the risk is down to extremely irresponsible use... many steps removed from the high level of medical supervision you laid out. The basics are some mental preparation, a trip sitter, correct dosage and a proper set. I don't consider psychologists the only or necessarily best guides. Like all drugs (including alcohol)…

> it's a lot safer than many sports and hobbies. What is the basis for this claim? How do we measure mental injury? What quantities are we talking about?

> As ACMD chairman Nutt repeatedly clashed with government ministers over issues of drug harm and classification. In January 2009 he published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology an editorial ("Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms") in which the risks associated with horse riding (1 serious adverse event every ~350 exposures) were compared to those of taking ecstasy (1 serious adverse event every ~10,000 exposures).

> In 2012, he explained to the UK Home Affairs Committee that he chose riding as the "pseudo-drug" in his comparison after being consulted by a patient with irreversible brain damage caused by a fall from a horse. He discovered that riding was "considerably more dangerous than [he] had thought ... popular but dangerous" and "something ... that young people do".

Brain injuries in American football over the past decade probably show that to be an even more dangerous sport, but I haven’t run the numbers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#%22Equasy%22

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#134

Post by filoeleven »

michalf6 wrote: post #68

It can't save the environment from cultures that will bulldoze over incapacitated and non-competing westerners who buy this hippie nonsense. Is there any good data on the effects of taking psychedelics on aggression / ambition / aggreableness / conscientiousness? The "becoming one with Nature" theme seems to be pretty common among enthusiasts, although I personally didn't notice a lasting effect after eating shrooms.…

> One celebrated study found that drug-naïve volunteers who were given psilocybin experienced lasting increases in openness to experience that were evident more than a year later.

> Openness to experience refers to the breadth, depth and complexity of a person’s mental life. People high in openness to experience tend to be intellectually curious, artistically sensitive, interested in new experiences, and have an active imagination.

None of these are direct counters to aggression, but I’d argue that they all contribute to keeping one’s bulldozers at bay.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-els...

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#135

Post by filoeleven »

currymj wrote: post #76

i don't like this argument at all. protecting the environment is an immense responsibility that we all share, so the argument veers close to implying that choosing not to take psychedelic drugs is morally wrong -- willfully choosing to inhibit "evolutionary intelligence". i've noticed that in the last couple years, psychedelic advocates have shifted from advocating for legalization and increased research (very good i…

At least one psychedelic advocate said that living a life without having a psychedelic experience is like living a life without having sex. He didn’t say that was a morally- wrong decision, only that you miss out on a deeply human, deeply significant experience which has a profound effect on how you view the world.

The choice to do either of these should be made freely and consciously, and each of them can be culturally restricted or promoted in healthy or unhealthy ways. The line between “healthy” and “unhealthy” is going to be different for everyone. I think a good thought exercise is to compare and contrast modern psychedelic advocacy with the 20th century’s sexual revolution.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#136

Post by tasuki »

jp0d wrote: post #126
weerd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice was not wrong. You probably would not have been a great sitter, and it's best to recognize that. Your comment comes off in the wrong way for a thread about muyshrooms.

You're right that I wouldn't have been a great sitter. Primarily because I don't understand them enough. Also psychiatric help is proven and should be the first step in dealing with mental health issues. There have been studies on the use of mushrooms to help in these cases. Some of those come from prestigious unis. However, only a trained psychiatrist can help a person prepare and go through such experiences. I'm no…

> only a trained psychiatrist can help a person prepare and go through such experiences.

Source?

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#137

Post by narag »

sebmellen wrote: post #129
narag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallel I was making in my mind was sex. There are all kind of risks and corresponding safety measures, preparations... you can write a comment like the gp without changing too much. So many times it happens in suboptimal conditions, specially the glorified first times.

And is that bad? Sex is a natural process, just like taking psychedelics. We don't need to regulate or control sex beyond some very simple ground rules (age limits), so why do we have to regulate or control psychedelic use? Just like sex, taking psychedelics is a (mostly) safe, natural process, with an important effect on the individual's maturation.

Bad? I'm all for sex, but STDs and unwanted pregnancy are very real. The perfect regulation is unrealistic, if at all desirable (it is for therapy), it just happens because humans want what we want.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#138

Post by Ygg2 »

defterGoose wrote: post #65
Ygg2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still the argument based on consumption. Let's consume X, surely that will sort our issue of emitting too much CO2. Edit: not to mention. Our environmental problems aren't consumption or conscience, or even technology based, but lack of political will.

Saying the problem isn't related to consumption is just willfully obtuse and wrong.

This magical mushroom needs to be distributed to people, right? And they need to be grown, right?

Unless they are grown in Narnia and transported via teleportation, they are going to cause CO2 emissions, for dubious gains. His argument was - it made me believe in unity with nature, ergo it will work on everyone. Also here is an unverified study.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#139

Post by BatteryMountain »

jatgoodwin wrote: post #41

The problem with psychedelics is they only make you "more" of what you are. It's the spotlighting effect multiplied. Especially when "bad" people take them they just become even more of an asshole, or dare I say when stupid people take them they just revel in the intoxication. You just have to read the old research literature on LSD like stuff from James Fadiman to understand that these are extremely dangerous substa…

So what about all the bad people becoming peaceful after a weekend with some mushrooms/ayahuasca/san pedro? Are we just going ignore people who had a complete personality flip?

Although.. some truth lies here. These plants and experiences can help attune you to your real nature. In your heart you might be softy, but a meanie in usual life. The plants can maybe help you express your softy side better and become more attuned to that nature, until it is your dominant expression. Which means the person might have had a false meanie personality expression for some reason (coping/defence mechanisms to trauma/abuse/hard life).

I think maybe the whole point to these plants/experiences are to teach us it is impossible to get clear cut black/white answers that our brains so easily digest and accept. It might help us accept that we won't have good answers for certain things and to accept certain things for what they are (broken family, disability etc).

I like the word "attune" when it comes to this stuff. I feel that we have an internal nature/essence that wants to be expressed. We can attune our minds to resonate or be on the same channel as the inner state (or soul or god being or whatever you want to call it). The first thing I like to do when relaxing (without any substances (or with them)) is to try and shake off my personality and step into the attuned state - step into the shoes of the inner child/being and feel it's energy, and try and have a conversation with it, ask it how it is, does it need anything, is it happy, and tell it that you love it with all your heart and thank it for giving you energy and love. In that moment I/you can become fully attuned with it and feel your power and creativity as cosmic being. While you are at it, imagine you and this being are made of light and that you are travelling through the cosmos together at light speed, that you feel the energy/intent of the universe flowing over and into you and it makes you happy. While sitting, raise your hand and feel the cosmic wind through your fingers and feel them grasp through the fabric of reality...

Sounds silly, I know. But do it the next time while under the influence, and see what you feel. It might change your life to commune with your inner being.

fyi I'm not relgious, it's just fun thought experiments that might feel nice.

Re: Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature

#140

Post by dkersten »

dmos62 wrote: post #91
dkersten wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not LSD At least this [1] suggests that LSD microdosing doesn’t do anything, while there have been a few studies that suggested psilocybin micrososing does. Dunno how strong the evidence is in either direction but that would make me more inclined to start with psilocybin if I were to experiment myself. [1] https://www.gwern.net/LSD-microdosing#conclusion

I can testify that LSD microdosing does something.

Something that couldn’t also be accounted for by placebo? I guess it’s impossible to properly control for that in a non-blind test. What kind of effect are you experiencing and how strong (if you don’t mind)?
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