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LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

nytimes.com

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Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#41

Post by Nursie »

benched wrote: post #39
Nursie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not characterising their experience for them, it's far too variable and subjective to do that. I also didn't use the phrase "The LSD Experience" so I'm not sure why you felt the need to quote that. What I will say is that some people seem to come back from it convinced that acid will change the face of humanity and society in some sort of miraculous way. But when pressed they can't say how. I don't think it's wro…

You seem particularly motivated to discount the awakening effects of LSD. I never mentioned seeing problems in society, so as far as I'm concerned that's a strawman. Are people wrong to feel profundity in the mundane? Is there another way to interpret the belief that LSD or access to altered states could change society?

I have no evidence such awakenings exist, and nobody can ever really define what they mean by them. What do you mean, exactly?

Nobody is wrong to feel profundity in the mundane, but LSD can have you feeling a profound connection to a piece of cheese, or suddenly realising that all humanity's problems would go away if we just wore more purple.

As for the problems with society, it very relevant to people who talk about awakenings and how/why the legislators and policy makers (to quote the post I originally replied to) would be somehow afraid of these awakenings.

It seems like magical thinking. And as nobody has been able to actually explain what they mean, that's the conclusion I've come to.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#42

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lutusp wrote: post #32

A quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse." I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked about their emotional state after the tre…

Interestingly enough, there was a student at Harvard in the 1960's (recounted in the Varieties of Psychedelic Experience), who did a placebo-controlled study of psilocybin (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment).

Long term follow-ups seem to indicate that the differences (in terms of a self-report questionnaire, at least) were maintained over 25 years.

In the book at least, it was concluded (by the primary researcher) that the blinding was completely ineffective (though I don't think that this was confirmed with a manipulation check).

I would say that placebo-controlled studies of psychedelics, for similar reasons that placebo-controlled studies of other drugs (cigarettes, coffee, alcohol) will be difficult. Namely that a placebo should be identical to the treatment in every respect except for the active ingrediant, and what's the active ingrediant?

Its really well-worth checking out the Varieties for some good pointers to research in the 50's and 60's, there was quite a lot of it, and although some of it was methodologically unsound, and there are very few RCT's, the sheer amount of studies should probably carry some weight.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#43

Post by benched »

lutusp wrote: post #32

A quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse." I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked about their emotional state after the tre…

I hesitate to even bother in this environment, where anything other than studies that meet the standards of rigor of Hacker News are dismissed, however:

A lot of people have a lot of idea about it, because a lot of psychiatrists and psychotherapists used LSD on their patients (and themselves) before it was outlawed.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#44

Post by jonnathanson »

DanBC wrote: post #36
jonnathanson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol is probably much worse than weed or coffee over the long run. It's exceedingly hard to slowly poison your liver and brain over the course of a lifetime by smoking herb. It's easier than you think to do it drinking alcohol. I'm not a teetotaler by any means. I drink a couple of glasses of something pretty much every other day. But that's about the limit of what a healthy, adult male should be drinking. Any mor…

8 glasses of wine a week, at 250 ml per glass is 2 litres. Weak 10% ABV wine would be 20 units. Normal 12.5% ABV would be 25 units. Strong 15% ABV wine would be 30 units. UK advice is no more than 3 to 4 units per day for men, with a couple of days free of alcohol and no "saving up" of units for a binge. (The old advice was 21 units per week for men.) http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/alcohol/Pages/Alcoholhome.aspx Drinking…

"I don't care if people use cannabis (and I am strongly in favour of legalisation) but I fucking hate the refusal of many cannabis users to even contemplate any negative effects of cannabis."

Don't get me wrong; I don't refuse to contemplate the negative effects of cannabis, of which quite a few have been hypothesized, some observed. When I said "alcohol is probably much worse than weed," I didn't say "weed is a free lunch." Just want to make sure I'm clear on that.

There are cannabinoid receptors in the brain (and other organs). Our current understanding of them is far from complete, and we know that smoking weed habitually will reregulate them, and not necessarily for the better. I'm not one of those hippy-dippy types who thinks there are no ramifications involved in smoking weed.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#45

Post by MichaelGG »

snake_plissken wrote: post #23

I've always found it incredibly amazing that psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT etc) were outlawed in responses to forms of massive, peaceful "movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the movement were known to do; that legislators and policy makers were so afraid of the affects these chemicals would have on society that they had to put the serious force of the law behind getting the…

The people promoting psychedelics back then were also being quite irresponsible. Dosing people without consent or knowledge and whatnot. All the "science" done then was terribly flawed.

Not that they should be responsible or that I'm blaming them for the backlash, but a bit more tact may have helped the movement in the long-term.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#46

Post by Zelphyr »

lutusp wrote: post #32

A quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse." I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked about their emotional state after the tre…

True, but my understanding (which could be wrong; grain of salt and all that) is that the study was designed to determine whether a psychedelic could be used in a therapeutic environment safely. Now that that's been established--none of the subjects deaths were in any way related to the LSD--they will move on to trying to more accurately measure outcomes.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#47

Post by debt »

sar9 wrote: post #34
debt wrote: post #14

I gotta say if you're an expert at something or at least consider yourself an expert at something: take LSD. LSD really dislodges how you view the world; it cleans out your mental system, like moving a fridge and cleaning all the crap that's been swept under there over the years. I would love if some of these prominent intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or any of the nobel prize winners did LSD. I saw a really intense m…

I wish more experienced DMT. It's like the ultimate Oculus Rift. The resolution, colors and sense of intelligence communicating with you is beyond anything any other psychedelic can produce. It is literally like opening a door to another dimension, one full of overwhelming love. Maybe it's just a biological trick but it is one of the most fascinating and unbelievable things in nature. Not everyone should try it but I…

Terrence McKenna talks a ton about DMTs transcendental effects in his book Food for the Gods. He thinks it literally allows us to talk to Aliens or the Other as he calls it. It's a strange book but has definitely piqued my interest in DMT.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#48

Post by benched »

Nursie wrote: post #41
benched wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem particularly motivated to discount the awakening effects of LSD. I never mentioned seeing problems in society, so as far as I'm concerned that's a strawman. Are people wrong to feel profundity in the mundane? Is there another way to interpret the belief that LSD or access to altered states could change society?

I have no evidence such awakenings exist, and nobody can ever really define what they mean by them. What do you mean, exactly? Nobody is wrong to feel profundity in the mundane, but LSD can have you feeling a profound connection to a piece of cheese, or suddenly realising that all humanity's problems would go away if we just wore more purple. As for the problems with society, it very relevant to people who talk about…

You're still doing it. You're spouting inanity you contrived out of your own head, and feigning to attribute that inanity to typical LSD use.

But do keep promoting your conclusion - I'm sure there's some important insight there.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#49

Post by tomelders »

spinlock wrote: post #19

I had a friend in college -- really smart physics major -- drop acid one summer and lose the ability to do math. He needed to take a year off and finally finished his degree but was never on top of his game again. I'm not saying that always or even usually happens. But, acid is no joke and I just wanted to make sure that the inexperience reading this know that trips can go really wrong. Especially when you aren't usi…

It's LSD, it can go one way or the other. My tip, if you're going to do it, do it. Take a full dose or don't do it at all. Doing "just a bit" is always miserable.

Even when it's bad, if you've got decent people around you, you can keep your shit together. But then if you've got decent people around you, you're unlikely to freak out.

Re: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy

#50

Post by justinhj »

jonnathanson wrote: post #27
EC1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's super social to go smoke a joint with my bosses after work and have a beer, I love it. I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity. I feel as if the emotional/…

Alcohol is probably much worse than weed or coffee over the long run. It's exceedingly hard to slowly poison your liver and brain over the course of a lifetime by smoking herb. It's easier than you think to do it drinking alcohol. I'm not a teetotaler by any means. I drink a couple of glasses of something pretty much every other day. But that's about the limit of what a healthy, adult male should be drinking. Any mor…

I agree with you on alcohol, but what's the problem with coffee? I'm curious because I drink it by the gallon.
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