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Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

nature.com

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Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#141

Post by pas »

vajrabum wrote: post #107
pharke wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer to that is to slowly increase the dose over a number of sessions. Starting out with microdosing to get used to the body feeling, then getting used to visual disturbances and the altered mental state, and then graduating to a level that can unlock new perspectives on self and the world. This absolutely has to be done by a trained professional with personal experience with the substance and who has a…

Ketamine is being used to good effect these days in major depression. I wonder if they ramp up the doses like that when using it?

Off-label use is great, doctors love it, but ... trials don't show much.

" [...] esketamine’s results are at least as bad as any SSRI’s. If you look at Table 9 in the FDA report, ketamine did notably worse than most of the other antidepressants the FDA has approved recently – including vortioxetine, an SSRI-like medication."

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by-prescr...

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#142

Post by pas »

WalterSear wrote: post #116
vajrabum wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ketamine is being used to good effect these days in major depression. I wonder if they ramp up the doses like that when using it?

They don't. Fwiw, the psychedelic effect of ketamine is separate from its antidepressant effect.

Hm, could you elaborate on that please? Do you mean the separate as in stereoisomer-wise? Or do you mean that ketamin has multiple effects on the brain or central nervous system, and one is the antidepressant effect and the other is the tripping balls effect? (And obviously pharma would like to find out what's going on exactly in the first case or ... how to block the second case while still having the first effect happen?)

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#143

Post by new2628 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #129
new2628 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I've known who took such medication have altered their personalities in noticeable (unpleasant) ways. It may be worth it for the person in question, but one should be aware of it.

Selection bias. Plenty of people take SSRIs with positive experience. They're just not advertising it to the world. People who have bad experiences are much, much more likely to communicate this to other people.

This may be true, but even in the cases that I mention the experience of those taking the medication was positive, it is just other people who noticed the shift in personality.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#144

Post by luckydata »

presiozo wrote: post #2

I'm kind of hoping this puts the nail in the coffin with researchers trying to separate the psychedelic effects from the anti-depressant effects so that they can turn it into some kinda pill people have to take every day.

that's not how it works. The anti-depressant, anti-addiction effect can only be achieved through the psychedelic effect since ego dissolution IS what you experience. Through that effect, you get to analyze the "parts" of your psyche without the executive function hiding the discrete parts and that's integral to WHY a psychedelic drug helps with those issues.

I don't believe this will ever be a once a week treatment.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#145

Post by Kalium »

pharke wrote: post #93
luckylion wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly the stigma psychedelic enthusiasts have in mind. Psychedelic-assisted therapy doesn't need to rely on patients being administered psychedelic doses on a daily basis. Why does it have to include the psychedelic component though (even sub-trip-levels)? Some seem to think that you absolutely must not divide the psychedelic qualities from other qualities, even if you could. As if "you only deserve to en…

I believe the sentiment most people are expressing when they say you cannot separate the "trip" from the beneficial effects is that they both have the same origin or causative agent. Personally I'm in the "neural annealing" camp and it makes sense to me from personal experience that the benefits are due to psychedelics being a drug that essentially induces a state that you would normally only experience during profou…

> I believe the sentiment most people are expressing when they say you cannot separate the "trip" from the beneficial effects is that they both have the same origin or causative agent.

Perhaps I've swallowed too much propaganda, but this seems like a testable belief. What if it's not true? What if psychadelic-assisted therapy is just one of multiple viable psychadelic-assisted treatment approaches? What if people want to be able to use store-bought neurotransmitters to regulate their minds without going through the trip-induced emotional or spiritual experience that they may not want?

Would achieving a deeper understanding of the relevant neurochemistry and allowing people to make their own choices be so bad? Would more treatment options be a negative?

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#146

Post by luigibosco »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #131
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong is psychedelics already work as-is The current research into psychedelic medicine is better described as intense therapy with a psychedelic adjunct for some sessions. They aren't just giving people psychedelics and hoping everything turns out okay. The psychedelic dosing is combined with therapy, and the sessions are both preceded by and followed with additional therapy without psychedelics. It's a mis…

> They aren't just giving people psychedelics and hoping everything turns out okay. The psychedelic dosing is combined with therapy, and the sessions are both preceded by and followed with additional therapy without psychedelics. And historically, that's exactly the way psychedelics have been used, for thousands of years. A shaman/guide would provide the medicine and help the people go through the experience, usually…

Maybe just the "tight community where there's follow up and support" may help.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#147

Post by luckydata »

ketamine__ wrote: post #20
themgt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong is psychedelics already work as-is, but due to stigma around "fun" alterations of consciousness possibly being beneficial (along with desire for a patentable compound that can get through FDA regs), most of the focus has been on how we can go about removing the wetness from water while preserving water's essential useful properties. Regardless of how many years go by and self-reporting along with scienti…

I agree with your statement on principle that we should make these drugs widely available when we find efficacy. I disagree that we shouldn't try to separate psychedelic effects from therapeutic action. There is a body of research on ketamine metabolites. Some of these metabolites may have less psychedelic effects and more anti-depressant action. I need to take ketamine almost every day. This means there are several…

The psychedelic effect IS the therapeutic action.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#148

Post by luckydata »

luckylion wrote: post #80
HighlandSpring wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the stigma psychedelic enthusiasts have in mind. Psychedelic-assisted therapy doesn't need to rely on patients being administered psychedelic doses on a daily basis. What's actually happening (either in trials or by underground practictioners) is that the super-malleable/open to self-analysis mental states that can be induced by psychedelics can be a catalyst for significant long-term shifts in perspe…

> This is exactly the stigma psychedelic enthusiasts have in mind. Psychedelic-assisted therapy doesn't need to rely on patients being administered psychedelic doses on a daily basis. Why does it have to include the psychedelic component though (even sub-trip-levels)? Some seem to think that you absolutely must not divide the psychedelic qualities from other qualities, even if you could. As if "you only deserve to en…

the psychedelic effect is simply (so to speak) the outcome of shutting down your executive function (that one that creates your internal monologue and gives you the perception of the self) so that the rest of your brain function that normally are "kept together and normalized" become more accessible for analysis and introspection.

Psychedelics are not anti-depressant, are just a potent accelerator for discovering WHY you're depressed. The psychedelic experience is necessary to the therapy. If you ever did a dose once you would understand exactly what I'm talking about, it's pretty hard not to understand what's happening once you experience it, just as it is essentially impossible before doing it.

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#149

Post by luckydata »

crisissolution wrote: post #59
joeberon wrote: post #6

Totally anecdotal but LSD made my depression significantly worse than improving it in any way. I had two proper trips and had a seizure kind of thing at the start of the second one due to the overwhelming visuals (not experienced anything like that before or since). EDIT: to expand, it made me very questioning of my own consciousness and gave me severe and persistent existential dread and fear of death to the point w…

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to add my own experience on LSD and the long-lasting effect of fear-of-death it can result in. I have taken LSD only three times and can't say I enjoyed it very much, but I still wanted to give it a chance. Last time I took a 1/2 of what was recommended for me to see how it goes, and the beginning was pretty enjoyable, I played League of Legends, and the mobs started walking on the wall b…

sounds like your trip was done very sub-optimally. I can't imagine a violent video game being something I would like to be involved while on psilocybin or similar.

read this before trying again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

Re: Alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

#150

Post by luckydata »

shlant wrote: post #55
joeberon wrote: post #6

Totally anecdotal but LSD made my depression significantly worse than improving it in any way. I had two proper trips and had a seizure kind of thing at the start of the second one due to the overwhelming visuals (not experienced anything like that before or since). EDIT: to expand, it made me very questioning of my own consciousness and gave me severe and persistent existential dread and fear of death to the point w…

I wonder if some have a genetic predisposition to bad reactions to psychedelics. My best friend had an LSD reaction similar to yours (increasingly intense hallucinations until falling on the ground and starting to seize). His brother had a bad experience with psilocybin and jumped out a window. I believe a second brother also had a bad experience. Makes me even more concerned when people talk about psychedelics as a…

the "jumped out of a window" part seems suspect. It's a common anti-LSD propaganda trope but as far as I know it happened only once provably. It's so strange that your best friend would have been the second case of that.

IMHO psychedelics get a bad rap because they are used by people that haven't done even the bare minimum reading and preparation to have an optimal experience. It's not difficult to do, and once you are in the right place, with the right environment and mindset, it's very easy to use the altered mental state to do productive work on your own psyche.

A hammer is a useful tool as long as you don't hit yourself in the forehead with it.

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