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Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

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Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#61

Post by surround »

Let’s say there’s a Facebook group of moms that enjoy using essential oils. Imagine that a study gets posted to the group showing that essential oils are ineffective at treating some disease. If I made a comment in that community about how, in my anecdotal experience, essential oils cured me of this disease, it would probably be supported over the study.

Now, instead of essential oils, let’s say I did the same thing with a drug that is popular in Silicon Valley, and instead of a Facebook mom group, it’s hacker news.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#62

Post by mhh__ »

subsubsub wrote: post #60
mulderc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience suggests you don’t need to go that far to get good results. I was at the lowest point in my life, very depressed and just generally lost. I was likely clinically depressed but didn’t have enough money to get a proper diagnosis. I everything short of prescription drugs to deal with it and nothing worked. Then I took some LSD and had a mild trip with a friend and literally the next morning I felt happy an…

If we're sharing unverifiable anecdotes about LSD, then I have one... A friends mother took LSD in the 80s and still gets nightmare flashbacks. Stay safe kids.

Maybe if you have a particularly bad trip but everyone seems to have these horror stories and yet no one is one e.g. it's like the teacher saying about how the kid who leant too far back on his chair fell over and cracked his head open

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#63

Post by haswell »

surround wrote: post #61

Let’s say there’s a Facebook group of moms that enjoy using essential oils. Imagine that a study gets posted to the group showing that essential oils are ineffective at treating some disease. If I made a comment in that community about how, in my anecdotal experience, essential oils cured me of this disease, it would probably be supported over the study. Now, instead of essential oils, let’s say I did the same thing…

There are studies and growing consensus that psilocybin can have positive/therapeutic effects.

Are you trying to imply that the same is true for essential oils? This seems like a false equivalency/strawman situation.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#64

Post by wyqydsyq »

porb121 wrote: post #47
wyqydsyq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to research to what degree the subjects feel the effects of a dose intended to be unnoticeable. The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

> The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is. there's tons of anecdotal reports of people experiencing tangible benefits from subperceptual microdosing; this study is valuable in that it tests those hypotheses in a semi-controlled setting.

The thing is, those tangible benefits are all subjective and immeasurable. There is no way to measurably differentiate between someone feeling good because they're microdosing, or feeling good because they had a nice day, which is why data collected in this study would largely be just noise.

I think that since a strong placebo (e.g. a tripper feeling good as a result of thinking they're going to have some LSD) alone can produce far more profound effects on mood than actually microdosing, all this study really did is reaffirm the placebo effect's efficacy. Any changes that would have been a result of microdosing would be lost in the noise of the placebo effect on top of whatever else was going on in each participant's life at the time.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#65

Post by jordan_curve »

haswell wrote: post #63
surround wrote: post #61

Let’s say there’s a Facebook group of moms that enjoy using essential oils. Imagine that a study gets posted to the group showing that essential oils are ineffective at treating some disease. If I made a comment in that community about how, in my anecdotal experience, essential oils cured me of this disease, it would probably be supported over the study. Now, instead of essential oils, let’s say I did the same thing…

There are studies and growing consensus that psilocybin can have positive/therapeutic effects. Are you trying to imply that the same is true for essential oils? This seems like a false equivalency/strawman situation.

The fact that psilocybin can potentially have positive therapeutic effects in controlled environments does not mean people “microdosing” experience those effects.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#66

Post by jordan_curve »

mhh__ wrote: post #62
subsubsub wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're sharing unverifiable anecdotes about LSD, then I have one... A friends mother took LSD in the 80s and still gets nightmare flashbacks. Stay safe kids.

Maybe if you have a particularly bad trip but everyone seems to have these horror stories and yet no one is one e.g. it's like the teacher saying about how the kid who leant too far back on his chair fell over and cracked his head open

Huh? Obviously if you dismiss all of the bad anecdotes and none of the good ones, you’re only going to have good anecdotes

My mom’s brother went into psychosis during an acid trip and eventually schizophrenia. He killed himself when he was 24.

I think hallucinagens are fun recreationally and clearly have the potential for positive therapeutic use, but let’s not pretend that it’s always positive, especially in uncontrolled settings.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#67

Post by merps »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #51

I won't discuss the study much itself ( https://elifesciences.org/articles/62878 for the link to the actual paper btw), except to point out how sad this state of affairs is: > A key limitation of the present study is the lack of verification of the nature, purity, and dosage of the psychedelic substance used for microdosing. Psilocybin-containing mushrooms were used by 23% of the sample, 14% used legal LSD analogues…

As others have said, thank you very much for your time sharing your understandings/learnings and experiences. I have had similar and I am also aligned with your views on both 'shrooms and 'cid. cheers..

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#68

Post by 01100011 »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #51

I won't discuss the study much itself ( https://elifesciences.org/articles/62878 for the link to the actual paper btw), except to point out how sad this state of affairs is: > A key limitation of the present study is the lack of verification of the nature, purity, and dosage of the psychedelic substance used for microdosing. Psilocybin-containing mushrooms were used by 23% of the sample, 14% used legal LSD analogues…

Thanks for the well written ramble.

> as causing "hallucinations" (no)

I used to think that. Lately my wife and I have been doing increasingly larger shroom trips. About 10 days ago we each took 5g ("lemon tek" and relatively fresh) cubensis and after finally experiencing a touch of 'ego death' my wife's skin started glowing a deep, intense blue and she was covered in glowing, multicolored jewels. It was as if a painting of Kali came to life and was in my hands. Up until now I've seen various open and closed eye geometric patterns, distortions, trails, etc. This was a new, and frankly amazing, level for me.

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#69

Post by tekromancr »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #53
poopsmithe wrote: post #44

This is my first hand experience. My life was a codependent mess, I was depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I took a "heroic dose" of psilocybin, and during the ~4 hour trip I fell asleep and I was convinced I had died. I re-experienced my forgotten birth and felt the pain of my circumcision. I experienced a bunch of unexplainable things, fractal patterns and music, and explored a Interstellar(2014)-like tesserac…

Thanks for sharing. I've never taken more than 3.5g of mushrooms, so not heroic, but even as little as 3g was enough for really profound life changes. 2g was just a fun experience and not much more. I've only done shrooms a handful of times but I think they're the best for actual transformative insight, whereas LSD (which I've done probably 30 times not counting microdosing) for me is much more just about the visual/…

> their most important organ

Lolwut? Look, I really enjoy my penis. Ol' penie and me have been through a lot together. But it's not even in my top five list of most important organs.

Like, gun to my head, I have to live the rest if my life without one of; dick, heart, liver, kidneys, brain, or dermis; I'm sorry but the choice is pretty obvious

Re: Microdosing study shows the placebo effect of taking psychelics

#70

Post by anm89 »

jordan_curve wrote: post #65
haswell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are studies and growing consensus that psilocybin can have positive/therapeutic effects. Are you trying to imply that the same is true for essential oils? This seems like a false equivalency/strawman situation.

The fact that psilocybin can potentially have positive therapeutic effects in controlled environments does not mean people “microdosing” experience those effects.

It doesn't mean they don't. And it's certainly makes it reasonable that those effects could exist.
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