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Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

nytimes.com

21–30 of 72 posts

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#21

Warning: anecdotes ahead. I would like to add some counterpoint to the otherwise seemingly endless supply of HN enthusiasm for psychedelics. Personally, I like psychedelics. I have an annual(ish) tradition of tripping somewhere really pretty. I think that the personal growth and emotional... trip is fun and worthwhile. However, my girlfriend had a bad trip and was scared of large trees for months. And I'd rate my gir…

1. Would you say you are qualified to diagnose whether someone is mentally stable?

2. Did she partake with someone who is experienced in guiding people through trips?

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#22
post #8

I don't know how the government can claim with a straight face that these substances have no known medical use, and are harmful. That's the criteria I think for Schedule 1, but there are clearly known uses for them, and the harm is relatively low. I really don't like thinking, "the government just wants to ban dangerous thoughts" but mushrooms - really? Compared to alcohol they are so incredibly safe.

Institutional inertia is one hell of a drug. Even putting aside the sinister motivations people are often very reluctant to change even in the face of major evidence - especially if it undermines their self worth to admit being wrong.

Institutional inertia reminds me of the process of indoctrination, learned through memorization and not through experience and critical thinking. It's true too, that this process can result in good people with no sinister motivations falling into certain traps.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#23
post #18

Psychedelic mushrooms are powerful medicine. They have a psychoactive effect which alters brain chemistry and helps neurological disorder. We can see that in the paper. But then so do anti-depressants. I believe the key difference between plant medicines like mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca and others and clinical mood altering medicine is within the ecstatic experience. It is one to thing to have a pill lead you to an…

How bad are the bad trips? And how often they appear?

Your best resource here is probably https://erowid.org/experiences/

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#24

Warning: anecdotes ahead. I would like to add some counterpoint to the otherwise seemingly endless supply of HN enthusiasm for psychedelics. Personally, I like psychedelics. I have an annual(ish) tradition of tripping somewhere really pretty. I think that the personal growth and emotional... trip is fun and worthwhile. However, my girlfriend had a bad trip and was scared of large trees for months. And I'd rate my gir…

You are using an experience of a "mentally stable" person to dictate the treatment of "mentally unstable" people.

The effects of Ritalin on a non-ADHD person are the opposite to what happens when an ADHD person takes them.

I appreciate the spirit behind your message however.

I think we are at the point where we can start research with mentally unstable people. It has been shown that there is little permanent issues from taking LSD or Mushrooms responsibly.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#25
post #18

Psychedelic mushrooms are powerful medicine. They have a psychoactive effect which alters brain chemistry and helps neurological disorder. We can see that in the paper. But then so do anti-depressants. I believe the key difference between plant medicines like mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca and others and clinical mood altering medicine is within the ecstatic experience. It is one to thing to have a pill lead you to an…

How bad are the bad trips? And how often they appear?

Trips often elevate beyond dualistic thinking. Common dualistic spectrums include good and bad, light and dark, heaven and hell, wet or dry, dead or alive, human and non-human, space or time...

The experiences are ineffable and unlike anything perceived by prior physical sense. The integrative aspect - taking the ecstatic vision and letting it into daily life - is an ongoing process which often takes up to a year. And so good or bad is too simplistic a lens in which to judge the psychedelic experience.

Moments of sheer terror, perceiving the blackest of black, are common. So too are moments of pure bliss and the sensation of limitless loving grace. These become trivialized by the overall experience, which is powerful enough to fully reorient a person's understanding of what it means to be a human being.

The result depends heavily on the pre-existing mental framework that engages with the medicine. For example, people from traditional western religious backgrounds may manifest demons, angels, and heaven and hell within their experiences -- if that is what _they feel they need to experience_ in order to realize the intention that they have brought with them into the ceremony.

My personal view revolves around the entrenchment of an individual's ego. Those who meditate and who have comfort with nondualistic thinking tend to ride the wave better than those who have very rigid conceptions of their self identity and its resultant patterning.

A rewarding read was the academic 'Antipodes of the Mind', a phenomenological study from cognitive scientist Benny Shannon. It is the most rigourous resource that addresses the wondrous weirdness of the Ayahuasca experience.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#27
post #18

Psychedelic mushrooms are powerful medicine. They have a psychoactive effect which alters brain chemistry and helps neurological disorder. We can see that in the paper. But then so do anti-depressants. I believe the key difference between plant medicines like mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca and others and clinical mood altering medicine is within the ecstatic experience. It is one to thing to have a pill lead you to an…

How bad are the bad trips? And how often they appear?

This is the main reason why psychedelics are so high risk - the variation of the experience makes them hard to recommend in any serious way.

It's not even a bad trip necessarily, a positive trip can still cause after affects, increased risk of psychotic episodes, or pretty severe anxiety and it's very hard to predict whether or not you'll be unlucky.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#28
post #18

Psychedelic mushrooms are powerful medicine. They have a psychoactive effect which alters brain chemistry and helps neurological disorder. We can see that in the paper. But then so do anti-depressants. I believe the key difference between plant medicines like mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca and others and clinical mood altering medicine is within the ecstatic experience. It is one to thing to have a pill lead you to an…

How bad are the bad trips? And how often they appear?

While I have never had a bad trip, I tend to argue that a bad trip is more likely to occur if you are in a unstable inner state and or your projection of the drug or the possible experience of using the drug is unstable.

Then again, I think your question comes down to semantics. I have heard friends say a bad trip is their best trip. But anyways and above all, I want to say, don't use labels of good, bad, etc, and just experience the experience.

Re: Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use

#29

I have a friend who used to be quite involved in the ayahuasca church. He now knows five people from the church who have committed suicide. The fifth just hung himself last weekend. He was 25, and was the son of one of the priestesses in the church. Spent his childhood in the church, being fed ayahuasca regularly. One of them was also a friend of mine. By the time he killed himself he was clinically insane and should…

I think it is a selection effect, it takes a special kind of person to want to do ayahuasca all the time. Or any more mind altering drug. Normal well adjusted people don't use drugs to excess. Maybe a little here and there.
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