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Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

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Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#371

Post by seec »

jrflowers wrote: post #326
a57721 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500µg is an immense dose, unless you have tolerance. Tabs usually have much less than the claimed amount. What was the source and form that makes you think 500µg is accurate? When it's 250µg or more, it's so overwhelming that many people don't have recollections from the trip after some point.

I didn’t write an extended trip report of a massive dose of LSD because this isn’t erowid and the details of the trip itself aren’t relevant. I brought it up as an example to contrast the post I responded to, as my experience was different regarding long-term effects I was very aware of and confident about the dosage and I had not had any psychedelics for months previous, so tolerance was impossible (also no medicati…

I believe there is a point after which the higher dosage doesn't change much, but the duration of the trip. I have noticed the same effect with mushrooms (truffles) where basically doubling the dose didn't do much. I'm not even sure it lasted that much longer, because of course you don't take them in a fixed reproducible setting where you could correctly compare stuff.

I think there is a lot of bullshit around those substances, pushed by shamanic type of people who just invent and repeat nonsense to appear unique/interesting.

The "reports" on Erowid, while interesting in a way, are also so full of nonsense that it's largely irrelevant as a source...

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#372

Post by seec »

EGreg wrote: post #314

Didnt a lot of studies finally come out by 2022 showing that SSRIs are not actually effective for most people, no more than a placebo? And the whole link between serotonin and depression was spurious… 2021: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/... 2022: https://www.jwatch.org/na55225/2022/08/16/antidepressants-wo... 2023: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 In any case, I believe…

Yeah that's just society absolutely wants to label/categorize behavior that appear to fall outside of the normal, most of the time failing to understand that those behavior have roots in the genetic makeup of the person as well as his personal experience. Most of the time there is nothing really wrong with the diagnosed perso but capitalist/productive society push for normalized behavior so that individuals have less difference and more exploitable/interchangeable.

Funny thing is that you can make the arguments that many of those behaviors are actually adaptation to the environment and may sometimes be the future of humanity. That do not please the productivistes who want to extract as much value of every individual as possible, like we do with cattle.

Now they are some very crazy people out there but it's a very small part of the population and you can often trace the problem back to genetics or physical impairement (environmental or else). Solving that sort of thing with drugs or therapy is basically wishful thinking, but it makes money so I guess that's ok...

As far as I can tell the whole field of psychology/psychiatry is basically just one step removed from full on charlatanism. We can learn some stuff about people's behavior, take some moral judgment about what's good or not (changes with time as well as political viewpoint) but the drive to specifically categorize is a bit crazy in itself...

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#373

Post by andoando »

seec wrote: post #369
andoando wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 grams in one sitting? Im not even so worried about the psychological response but even a gram can give me extreme stomach pain and nausea that ruins the whole thing.

LSD has somewhat the same effect but in a cleaner way. It's not really about the mushroom itself or the way you ingest it. That being said, mushrooms are not very good regardless so you can process them in a way that makes it palatable (teas, blended smoothies, etc). But that won't make that weird nausea feeling disappear, you just get used to it and it slowly becomes unnoticeable as you progress on the "experiment".…

I havent had the same effect from LSD, I also didnt have it the first few times I took it weirdly enough. I think how anxious you are seems to determine how much attention you give to the stomach pain.

Last time I was sitting there miserable for an hour and I started thinking this is life in general. I can either continue to cry about the bad or try and fill my time with something positive. I started to take a walk and think more positively and it seemed to do the trick, for a bit anyway

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#374

Post by andoando »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #366
andoando wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some info on how much you took, and in what setting you took them, what you did on the trip, etc? I have a bunch of shrooms sitting in my cabinet but I havent had got any life altering effect out of them.

Same: I saw crazy stuff, but when the effects wore off, nothing had changed.

This would actually be my preferred trip. I just want to have fun, its been so long since I had genuine good fun. Im tired of all the mental reflection.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#375

Post by DiscourseFan »

hmcq6 wrote: post #193
DiscourseFan wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was 500ug of LSD mixed with probably 6 or 7 drinks of alcohol. Suffered serotonin syndrome for a few days afterwards. Regardless I’ve heard stories of people having severe long term psychological issues from even relatively light doses, simply because of how their body in particular interacted with the drug.

You got serotonin syndrome from LSD? That is incredibly rare, so rare I can’t find any other documented cases Edit: did you test it to make sure it was real LSD?

Yes, it was definitley real. I mixed it with alcohol that’s why.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#376

Post by jrflowers »

seec wrote: post #370
matrix87 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't compare mega doses for shrooms vs acid, they both hit very differently shrooms feel kind of weak until you get to mega dose territory I wouldn't recommend a shroom mega dose either, it feels too chaotic to take anything away from

I very much disagree, the effects are extremely similar, to the point where if one could match the active substance dosage as well as absorption rate, you would be very hard pressed to tell the difference. The relative difference is because people generally don't process their shrooms very well and they take much longer to digest (slower release over time) and also its very impossible to judge the potency of the shro…

None of this is true, for various reasons. Psilocybin and LSD are qualitatively different above very low doses. They have a lot in common, but only a person that is basically unfamiliar with one or both would call them identical. The experiences become more distinct the higher the dose.

Psilocybin/psilocin has different binding affinities than LSD, is metabolized differently etc. They are, quite simply, different drugs.

>The only thing with LSD is that it takes longer to completely clear out of your system (because it is already extracted in pure form, while shrooms have to be digested/processed by your system in a less efficient/effective way

This is borderline gibberish. The “purity” of the “extraction” (???) has nothing to do with metabolism, protein binding or excretion. The LSD expense typically lasts longer because… it is a different drug. Your body treats it differently than psilocybin because it is different from psilocybin.

And the molecules do not look that much alike, unless you think that all indoles look alike. Even if they did, molecules that look alike do not necessarily act alike (eg H2O and H2O2)

Psilocybin:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#/media/File%253AP...

LSD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD#/media/File%3ALSD_Struct...

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#377

Post by AbstractH24 »

fsckboy wrote: post #264
thegrim33 wrote: post #173

The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. The sample size is pretty small. The methodology is also kind of strange, the psilocybin group got a total of 20 hours of in-person therapy during their 'treatment' and 6 follow-up skype calls, whereas the SSRI didn't get anything other than the 6 month questionaire. Those 20 hours of personalized therapy whil…

> The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population. Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox…

A larger sample size isn't inherently better, but if a large sample size from a diverse enough pool of people can be used to eliminate and/or identify confounding variable and distortions.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#378

Post by asveikau »

fsckboy wrote: post #364
asveikau wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying the claim that psychedelics are effective treatment for depression, PTSD, addiction etc. are simply because those who try it suffer those conditions? What about the part where they say it works effectively? Because I don't think alcohol or cannabis are claimed to be an effective treatment for these conditions in the same way that psychedelics are. The idea that it works seems irrelevant to your conclus…

sounds like a reasonable hypothesis, that people who are unhappy with their emotional/mental state might be more attracted to altering it, or might experience results they consider more positive. how do our brains decide to do anything, like eat ice cream? "hey, I loved that last time". We know that drugs are not experienced as universally positive because many people who try them in college do not go on use them thr…

But the part you miss is that it works. This is anecdotal for now but people are looking at evaluating that more objectively.

It's not even a stretch if you squint at this. The currently accepted treatment is SSRIs, the second S standing for serotonin. Psychedelics work on serotonin receptors. Why would it be surprising that if you tweak your serotonin receptors, you get treatment for depression? Again, this is not true of alcohol or cannabis.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#379

Post by yieldcrv »

seec wrote: post #367
fsckboy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the vast majority of people who try psychedelics are not trying to escape untreatable clinical depression, they are doing it recreationally, for a roller coaster ride which they believe connects them with the Almighty or the Unknowable or the Dao or the All-loving Everpresent or the "insert word that sounds profound" These people are inspired—perhaps by the Almighty, i'm not judging—to preach The Gospel of psychedeli…

I have tried and use those things (mushrooms, LSD, MDMA) just for fun and I think they are alright if you understand that it is just that: a fun experience, like alcohol or cannabis can be. But I agree that there is a large amount of people taking those things and coming up with large amount of bullshit to justify taking it, in an attempt at pretending that they are more than just fun. It's always people who are very…

although I criticize the same people, I think your viewpoint is too dismissive

without prior knowledge of what psychonauts say, I also experienced increased empathy or ability to relate to more people and animals. body language, cues, things that maybe come with mental development or maturity but seemed more refined and accelerated. on the empathy and EQ, it seems to wear off. so noticing that is a shared experience is fascinating to me, I wish it could be controlled for specifically to refine that aspect of the substance or trigger in our minds instead of jumping into the debate about legalizing that specific substance, and I understand the limitations in testing it, both from a legal and regulatory standpoint and from a control group and study standpoint

this leaves us at square one, where I can appreciate others experiencing it but I cant quite recommend either due to how varied the experience is

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#380

Post by shakna »

braiamp wrote: post #361
shakna wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistical analysis in psychology is traditionally very poor, because there is an exceptionally high amount of variability. This is a known problem.

No, psychology studies have been traditionally very poor because most of the theory was literally out of someone ass, without proper design. Newer studies have been shown to be very robust, public freakout notwithstanding.

Newer studies [0] show us that

a) p-hacking is still alive and well in the psychological community.

b) p-curves are not sufficient for detecting this.

That isn't a lack of proper design. It's a case of statistics being abused to show significance when there is none.

[0] https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1027/2151-2604/a000383

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