13 ms·

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity

302 points by lainon 8y ago

mnm1 8y ago
Current antidepressant drugs are garbage by comparison but we're stuck with them for profit and stupidity reasons. In the meantime millions who could potentially be helped suffer and die. It's truly hard to justify the current situation on this research and the government's position in letting people suffer and die from such a horrific condition as depression when there might be a solution right before our eyes. Future generations will not look kindly on our stupid, barbaric, hateful society for this.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- zepto 8y ago
  Yes it seems totally plausible that psychedelics can help people who had maladaptive experiences or upbringings make permanent improvements, that symptom relief drugs like antidepressants may even stand in the way of. Almost all of the work on using psychedelics to treat trauma bears this out. On the other hand, if psychedelics increases plasticity, regular use could also destabilize a mind or erode important learning. Figuring out when it is appropriate to adjust plasticity is going to be the challenge to beneficial use here. If the current ‘psychedelics cure mental illness’ craze leads to more indiscriminate use, it is going to lead to more terrible casualties before we work this out.
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    >psychedelics can help people who had maladaptive experiences or upbringings make permanent improvements, that symptom relief drugs like antidepressants may even stand in the way of. this is my understanding as well. kind of like how a child would never learn how to walk on its own if the parent held it upright 100% of the time. unfortunately, i think a big problem with the current standard of care is that it prioritizes shutting the patient up -- reducing complaints regarding symptoms -- over curing the patient. there is a difference; imagine if the "real" effect antidepressants have is to make people more reluctant to communicate negative thoughts to others. the patient would still be suffering just as much, but appear to have improved. the brain is subtle enough for this to be a reality... obviously i don't believe that this example (which is totally made up) is uniformly the case. but shifting the frame to address the underlying problem of "stuck" or maladaptive neural circuitry via psychedelics could be immensely helpful for patients. psychedelics would also improve the efficacy of the other psychoactive tool we kind of think is somewhat helpful in some instances of some kinds of cases: therapy. therapy is retooling neural circuitry the hard way -- via repeated activation of alternative thought patterns of nebulous physiology in the hopes of eventually shifting the thought pattern to be adaptive rather than maladaptive. if we had a switch to flip that would enhance neural plasticity, this process would be much faster and much more effective. it would also be much more fraught with chances of inflicting damage, i'd assume.
- whb07 8y ago
  Are we though? Most of the time people look for a pill solution to major deficiencies in their lives. The doctor isn’t strapping you down and shoving the drugs into your mouth. Just like blaming the heroine drug epidemic at pharma and doctors, it’s weird how we never look at the individual who’s taking the pills in the first place. Prior to this epidemic we had other ones to which everyone was really trying to pin the blame on something else rather than a combination to include the individual as well. My buddy is a doctor and he’s aware of the lies/illusions patients live in. But if the doctor suggests such things like “exercise/clean up diet” for a few weeks before progressing to another step, that patient will never come back. They will also downrate the doctor on yelp like sites. So it becomes a troublesome proposition for that doctor.
  - mnm1 8y ago
    Not sure what you're asking. If you're asking if we are stuck with shitty drugs that only work sometimes and require the patient to be dependent on them, I'd say yes. The legal consequences are too severe to argue otherwise. Even carrying out legitimate scientific studies is close to impossible. Of course one should lol at the individual. One should also look at society's role in promoting depression. But you're not going to fix society so you're not going to fix the individual who is made sick by that society. People need friends and contact with other people, not the isolation our society provides. They need stability in life and purpose, not the unemployment and abysmal life our society provides for most of its members. We can't fix these problems. Blaming the individual for things that are out of his control is silly. Making him dependent on a substance to function is criminal. All the while we have medicine that one doesn't need to be dependent on and can be used once in awhile for recovery but researchers are punished with jail time so that we increase the profits of the company making the drug that doesn't work. Who wouldn't rightfully be depressed in such a society and who wouldn't be angry at people who suggest that the individual's own behavior rather than the helplessness and hopelessness of our society are his fault alone (as our society does with this issue)?
  - thatcat 8y ago
    Sounds like your friend decided to optimize his medical recommendations based on return business and has found reasons to blame the patients as a justification for operating on business metrics. The patients are probably doing the same thing, who needs to pay a doctor to tell them to diet and excercise?
- kolinko 8y ago
  If you have a neurotypical person, therapy, or psychedelics can bring a lasting result. But for a certain subset of population, with messed up serotonin pathways, antidepressants are the cure. Just like for a diabetic an insulin shot is.
  - wu-ikkyu 8y ago
    >messed up serotonin pathways, antidepressants are the cure. Just like for a diabetic an insulin shot is. We should be careful when saying psychiatry is "just like" biological science, it's not. "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances While it's true many people have experienced positive results with antidepressants (many have with placebos as well), "messed up serotonin pathways" and "chemical imbalances" are marketing slogans, not scientific facts.
  - adrice727 8y ago
    I read "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari[1] a couple weeks ago. He spends much of the first section on the research and history of antidepressants. One particularly interesting thing is that drugs that decrease serotonin levels are just as effective as those that increase serotonin. The same goes for drugs that alter levels of dopamine. It seems that a great majority of the effectiveness of antidepressants comes from the placebo effect, and the remainder is somewhat of a mystery. Also, doesn't cure imply something that is permanent and not just a temporary measure? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connections-johann-hari-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connectio...
    - llamaz 8y ago
      I don't know much about human biology, but if the relationship between dopamine/seratonin and depression/anxiety is more non-linear than linear, then the fact that both increasing and decreasing dopamine/seratonin is effective can make perfect sense. This sort of relationship - where small changes shift an equllibrium and result in a qualitative change - are common in nature and a forteriori human physiology.
everdev 8y ago
For those that haven't tried psychedelics but are curious about them in a personal growth / non-recreational way, on the Joe Rogan podcast I heard a good metaphor along these lines: Imagine your brain as a snowy hill. Each decision you make is like sledding down the hill, causing a slight indentation in the snow. The more times you make a decision, the deeper the groove, the faster you make the decision and the harder it is to try something different and escape the groove. Psychedelics is like fresh powder on the hill won't the grooves away so you can try new ways of thinking / new routes down the hill.
- scarecrowbob 8y ago
  It's not a bad analogy. I will add this: the shape of the hill stays the same, and mostly that fresh powder will melt back into those old ruts... the changes that these experiences bring seem, to me, more about knowing the ruts are there then they are about changing things in our lives. The change comes from the awareness of what can be done, because formerly "natural" things that are "just what people do" start to seem like artificial, learned behaviors. That's a powerful thing to grok, and easier to comprehend at the level of our nervous system with these substances. I haven't found these drugs to be super "fun" outside of the non-recreational ways of doing things, but the older I get the more I enjoy things that most folks find exceptionally boring. But I do find them very useful. For people who people worry about the long term effects of these things; I feel like for most healthy adults, if they "start small" the actual long-lasting effects are pretty minor. Here's an idea to consider for curious folks: if one or two psychedelic experiences could fundamentally alter your views on your life, you probably ought to consider the deep things in your life more often.
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    yeah, one of the biggest misconceptions that i had was that it would be "fun" to try psychedelics. it wasn't fun, and it wasn't not-fun. it was different, and it was a learning experience. the long lasting effects were negligible for me. the biggest change was that i realized i might be "on the spectrum" but it isn't as though it was a life-changing realization. i agree regarding your final point. i do think that psychedelics are more "helpful" for people who are extremely extraverted or otherwise reluctant to reflect on themselves.
tranchms 8y ago
I’m a huge proponent of safe psychedelic use, specifically LSD. I was massively depressed and suicidal growing up (I had family problems, and two of my best friends killed them selves at 13 and 17). I dropped out of high school. I experimented with LSD and mushrooms around 17/18 years old. And while I didn’t realize it then, my life massively changed for the better. Maybe I grew up. Maybe I took responsibility for my life. Or maybe... there was a synergistic effect that accompanied my psychedelic use. My religious family thinks it was all their prayer and god’s work... because it’s a miracle. As I got older, the more I believe that it had a profound impact on my mind, and my ability to perceive the world and my sense of self differently, in an empowering way. I now am an evangelist for psychedelic use. I share it with whomever I feel would benefit, educating them on the research, on the negative stigmas, and emphasizing how necessary it is to respect the substance and approach it with care and good intent. I ended up attended a top 12 university. I worked hard. Most of my friends at that university experimented with LSD. None of them are crazy. They all are doing amazing things. They’re all deep and insightful. Psychedelics have gotten such a terrible reputation. I believe it is immensely helpful for anxiety and depression. I believe it needs to be adopted as a therapeutic alternative to current psychiatric therapies which are toxic and destructive and deadening by comparison. (I was on countless drugs growing up, dozens, prescribed by psychiatrists... they did nothing. Just made me more dead inside.) I also believe psychedelics open the mind in ways that only radical life experiences can. I think this mind expansion can be useful for learning, creating, and perceiving new ways of looking at the world.
- pdgonzalez872 8y ago
  So how do I get to experiment with this in a controlled and legal way these days?
  - anythingnonidin 8y ago
    Go to one of these: https://psychedelicsociety.org.uk/experience-retreats https://psychedelicsociety.org.uk/experience-retreats https://www.mycomeditations.com/ https://www.mycomeditations.com/ https://synthesisretreat.com/ https://synthesisretreat.com/
  - 8y ago
cageface 8y ago
I am overall pro psychedelics but I have seen them harm people first hand as well. They should be treated with a lot of caution and respect. I totally understand the urge to evangelise them but keep in mind that you're taking on a lot of responsibility when you encourage people to experiment with their brain chemistry.
- tranchms 8y ago
  I hear ya. I’ve yet to see it negatively effect anyone other than a bad trip, which, seen in the right light, can be a therapeutic experience. But I know they need to be respected and understood. I also realize that some people with a family history of mental disorders like schizophrenia, would be better off staying away. Like, some people have used psychedelics, and they go crazy. But how many of those people were crazy to begin with? How many would end up like that if they never tried psychedelics to begin with? I tend to think that the fear is over dramatized. But I do emphasize respecting its use in a profound way. It changes you. The upside is that real LSD is so rare, the chances of people finding it are slim to non. It’s distributed by so few people.
  - cageface 8y ago
    I watched a good friend freak out in front of me on a bad trip. Almost thirty years later he's still not the same and needs antipsychotic medication to function. This kind of thing isn't common but it can definitely happen.
    - rufugee 8y ago
      It's entirely possible that LSD uncovered or accentuated an underlying flaw in your friend's psyche...
      - cageface 8y ago
        It probably did but that flaw wasn't obvious at all beforehand. He was a bit eccentric but also a really bright and funny guy with a lot of friends and a very dedicated student.
acd 8y ago
Psychedelics such as LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline has the ability to treat long term depression. They seem to allow you to step out of the box in other words get you a truly new perspective on the world. From what I can understand these drugs alter the brain area responsible for emotions the amygdala. I would go as far as to say people with long term depression needs reprogramming of their brain and one way to accomplish that is Psychedelics. This is not something one should self administer when depressed. For those who tried above substances did it change your brain for the better? Also I belive Psychedelic drugs could help people with autism spectrum for some. People with autism also be helped with a different perspective on the world. Psilocybin and Depression https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-drugs-brain-repair-lsd-depression-anxiety-lsd-dmt-amphetamines-ketamine-a8395511.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-drugs-...
- dgzl 8y ago
  > For those who tried above substances did it change your brain for the better? That's a tough question to answer, but I can share my story and maybe you can glean from it. The truth is, drugs can do incredible things for the mind, body and soul, but the person must be able to handle the intensity, and their own craving. My upbringing was pretty rough: parents divorced when I was young and I was raised by my southern-Christian grandparents since I was five. My parents were very poor and my grandparents had already raised two kids on low income. I was fairly depressed growing up for many reasons related to my natural life. I'm first generation in my family to graduate University, let alone with a STEM degree, and my career provides a better salary than anyone in my family has ever had. It was a pleasant surprise for my family, and you'll understand after the next couple of paragraphs. I had stated smoking pot in middle School, alcohol came next, then ecstacy, codeine, mushrooms, and Acid, all before I graduated high school. College had shown me MDMA, DMT, cocaine, various opiates, and some research chemicals my friend kept around. Recently (late twenties) I had experimented with ketamine for the first time. In high school, when some friends and I started getting into ecstacy, it didn't take long before some of them became habitual users. At one point my friends would be taking it at school. I took this as a cautionary red flag, and reigned in my ecstasy use at the time. Sure enough, those friends became addicted to the sensations, and took life paths that would lead them to misery. This was a vital learning moment in my life. Around that same time in high school, I had arranged with other friends to take mushrooms together at their house. I ended up taking about 7 grams, which is -plenty-, and about twice as much as the most I've ever taken. The effects were good when they were good, but really bad when they were bad. Most of the time I couldn't arrange proper sentences, regular body functions seemed like foreign operations within myself, and everything I looked at had a Kaleidoscope-esque effect on it. At one point I summersaulted into my friends wall on the way to the bathroom, where I proceeded to fail to remember how bathrooms work, and pee all over myself. This experience has since kept me distant from mushrooms. Right into college, I had joined a political activist group and started making friends. While driving together to an overnight rally at the neighbor University, some friends in the group revealed to me that they regularly consume large amounts of psilocybin mushrooms. I didn't end up getting to know them well, but they seemed like nice and well-intended hippy-types attending college. A month ago, I went to an epic-level music festival where the only thing more prolific than music and water were drugs. While walking to find a restroom at sunrise, I came across a guy hanging in his campsite mumbling to himself. We started some conversion and he came back to our camp to hang. Later he revealed to us that he was coming down off a twenty strip (20 hits of LSD). That guy made for some interesting conversation. For me, more than any other type of drug I've tried, psychedelics do best at opening my mind. Other drugs have their purposes, but from these drugs, the effects are truly interesting. I feel like I'm able break down mental structures that exist in my mind, and recreate them in different ways, either for a real goal (relief from depression), or just for fun (hallucination, creative outlet). Once I found my footing with psychedelics, my experience became centered around allowing weird and non-conventional thoughts to take over my mind, until I I'm rethinking how everything workes and why things operate in today's life the way they do, and how with some wild creatively, we could have an entirely different reality that's more beneficial to us all. That, and dancing.
allthenews 8y ago
I am excited to see more positive coverage of psychedelics. But every time threads like these pop up, there are people who claim to know people who came away from a trip with some kind of psychosis/anxiety disorder. I haven't reviewed the literature in some years; can anyone recommend any modern sources which document rates of poor outcomes post trip? I feel like, while odds are in one's favor, these drugs can be a coin toss, I'd like a better feel for the odds.
vitro 8y ago
I cannot find the author of the quote, nor the quote itself, but it was something like this: "You should take psychedelics and then work hard to experience the same, but without psychedelics itself". I remember one guy posting about his experience with psychedelics and then with long period of yoga and meditation. Interesting thing was, that he described something similar. On psychedelics it was as if you would take a jet plane and got somewhere really fast. Yoga and meditation, on the other hand, take you same place but you have a time to look around during the process. It takes a lot of time, though, but also is safer. Interesting may be combining meditation and yoga with microdosing, which should still keep you on the safe side.
- sametmax 8y ago
  There are several meditations teaching that strongly advise to avoid mixing deugs and meditations. Some, like vipassana, even recommand to stop taking any drug prior practice.
- jeffwass 8y ago
  My friend in college gave a similar analogy as the quote in the first paragraph. He said psychadelics can open the door but then you go thru the door. You don’t just keep re-opening the door.
tuxxy 8y ago
Anecdotal info warning: A few years ago, I thought I was completely incapable of feeling happiness. I hadn't experienced it for a long time and was completely numb. I was chronically depressed for 4-6 years. I took shrooms from a friend at a security conference completely unaware of what I was getting into. For the first time in _years_, I felt truly happy. I have no idea, physiologically or psychologically, what happened, but when I woke up the next morning my entire world changed -- I didn't feel numb anymore. That day, my chronic depression ended. I have been depression free for a few years now. We _need_ more research for this.
- andai 8y ago
  I had a friend who was suicidal, and mushrooms were the only thing that helped him. He'd feel better for a week or two.
  - innocentoldguy 8y ago
    I don't have any anecdotal stories to share. I just like shrooms.
yeukhon 8y ago
Drug makers do not understand what it is like to be psychotic and mentally ill. They need to experience them to truly understand how to develop drugs, because most of the drugs are ineffective and side effects are way too strong. John Nash has given up on his medication and instead rationalized his disability for the rest of his life, after his final discharge in 1970. It's unfortunate many people do not understand mental illness at all, and they think therapy and drugs can be cure people. They cannot. Mental illnesses are treatable, but they cannot be cured. Okay, I am done. I hate this world. Fuck these medications. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg Look at it. Ain't working. Ain't working, people. They ain't working. Ain't nobody gonna understand. I read enough papers to fully understand no drugs can help.
anythingnonidin 8y ago
There are some people in this thread asking for advice on using psychedelics. If you're in this thread and likely to use psychedelics, please do your research first. My recommendation is to at least thoroughly read the following resources before beginning: - https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/ https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/ (I started this website, it has quite a few users, and it's important that people who are likely to use psychedelics are aware of this info for everyone's benefit.) - Then, next perhaps the book "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide"
mettamage 8y ago
Counterpoint for shrooms 1. I took magic mushrooms (well truffles, Amsterdam, sold in smartshops, i.e. legal) and I felt a bit uncomfortable in my body and I felt like a kid. 2. I took magic truffles again (again Amsterdam) and I felt a lot uncomfortable in my body and was contemplating suicide. Fortunately I had on gray brain cell left that said "you can kill yourself, but only if you agree on it when you're sober and it's one week later." I locked myself in a bathroom with no windows. Yes, I could hurt myself in the bathroom, but I was fortunately to dumb to know how to do that. When the effect started cooling down it was a mix between a really bad trip and a really profound, meaningful yet really painful trip. When I came out of the trip and felt sober I got a lot of data to analyze about myself and that definitely helped me. Yet, god forbid if I didn't have that 1 gray brain cell that realized that I was on truffles and therefore not in my right mind. Needlessly to say, when I was sober I decided to live because life is one interesting big trip anyway :D One thing that I am realizing more and more: I really like myself sober. When I am sober I am capable of keeping my emotions in check. It's easier to love myself and all those things. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the insights.
- moyya 8y ago
  I can echo this sentiment, as a normally soft-spoken guy who was arrested while completely out of his mind on psilocybin. My perception of reality was utterly shattered; I thought I had died and that my mind was transported into a realm of eternal torture. I'll never forget the dread I experienced while being forced to the asphalt and handcuffed by police officers on the side of the road. They took me to a hospital where I believed the medical staff were preparing to physically mutilate me (keep in mind, I was handcuffed the entire time...I felt helpless). When a nurse asked my name and address, I just broke down and started bawling. Apparently they gave me a sedative, and I woke up later to find my family sitting around me crying. Psychedelics have an amazing propensity for good, but they can also destroy you. Tread carefully.
  - iamforreal 8y ago
    Sober trip sitters are a requirement, in my experience. Like, cigs and alcohol at most for them
openfuture 8y ago
For those who want to walk this road I'll share some insights that I think would have helped me progress faster. You will need to face every thought that you normally would censor due to shame, those include (usually in this order): sexual thoughts, psychotic thoughts and religious thoughts. Then you will reach true vulnerability and loneliness (which is the prerequisite for truly connecting with others). Any 'spiritual path' will take you through the same process but psychadelics do it faster meaning there is less control (i.e. less feeling of safety) however this can be a good thing since we often use the control afforded through for example yoga to avoid facing some flaw in our methodology. As always I recommend patience as the principal approach and an absolute belief that the true nature of the world is 'good'. The key insight is that everything is about relaxing and trusting the wisdom that lives deep down, it doesn't matter what you are doing, if you approach it in this way with balance and compassion as goals then you can feel better.
- abrkn 8y ago
  ...and have a trip sitter.
hammock 8y ago
> Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity Glad to see public research is coming out on this, and it's not a brand new insight. Pretty sure that's why the CIA were using them in MK ULTRA mind-control experiments.
EGreg 8y ago
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-trip-1531932587 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-tr...
p1mrx 8y ago
I'd like to see research comparing the effectiveness of cannabis in small doses, against other psychedelics. If your goal is to benefit the largest number of people, then it makes sense to start with a substance that a significant fraction of the population can access without advanced social skills and risk tolerance.
noddy1 8y ago
I had an acid trip with an agonizing comedown that made me really rethink my life and priorities. As a result of that day I began the path to go to medical school, despite everyone including my parents telling me it was unrealistic. I'm just finishing specialist training in anaesthesiology and my life is great and I pretty much thank LSD for the whole thing.
red75prime 8y ago
I would prefer something which promotes neural plasticity without showy side effects.
all_usernames 8y ago
Surprised there's been hardly any mention of Michael Pollan's new book. He's the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and most recently How to Change Your Mind -- mostly about the recent advances in the study and therapeutic uses of psychedelics. There's also an accessible chapter or two on the latest neurophysiology findings on the psychedelic or mystical state of consciousness. The book goes into some detail about a few FDA-approved clinical trials for MDMA and LSD-assisted psychotherapy underway, some approaching Stage 3 -- these are mainly the result of over 15 years of work by MAPS[1] -- if Stage 2 results are anywhere near as successful as the small Stage 1 trials, we're pretty likely to see legal and widespread adoption for the treatment of PTSD, end-of-life anxiety, and/or depression. [1] http://www.maps.org/ http://www.maps.org/

302 points by lainon 8y ago

mnm1 8y ago

Current antidepressant drugs are garbage by comparison but we're stuck with them for profit and stupidity reasons. In the meantime millions who could potentially be helped suffer and die. It's truly hard to justify the current situation on this research and the government's position in letting people suffer and die from such a horrific condition as depression when there might be a solution right before our eyes. Future generations will not look kindly on our stupid, barbaric, hateful society for this.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
zepto 8y ago
Yes it seems totally plausible that psychedelics can help people who had maladaptive experiences or upbringings make permanent improvements, that symptom relief drugs like antidepressants may even stand in the way of. Almost all of the work on using psychedelics to treat trauma bears this out. On the other hand, if psychedelics increases plasticity, regular use could also destabilize a mind or erode important learning. Figuring out when it is appropriate to adjust plasticity is going to be the challenge to beneficial use here. If the current ‘psychedelics cure mental illness’ craze leads to more indiscriminate use, it is going to lead to more terrible casualties before we work this out.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  >psychedelics can help people who had maladaptive experiences or upbringings make permanent improvements, that symptom relief drugs like antidepressants may even stand in the way of. this is my understanding as well. kind of like how a child would never learn how to walk on its own if the parent held it upright 100% of the time. unfortunately, i think a big problem with the current standard of care is that it prioritizes shutting the patient up -- reducing complaints regarding symptoms -- over curing the patient. there is a difference; imagine if the "real" effect antidepressants have is to make people more reluctant to communicate negative thoughts to others. the patient would still be suffering just as much, but appear to have improved. the brain is subtle enough for this to be a reality... obviously i don't believe that this example (which is totally made up) is uniformly the case. but shifting the frame to address the underlying problem of "stuck" or maladaptive neural circuitry via psychedelics could be immensely helpful for patients. psychedelics would also improve the efficacy of the other psychoactive tool we kind of think is somewhat helpful in some instances of some kinds of cases: therapy. therapy is retooling neural circuitry the hard way -- via repeated activation of alternative thought patterns of nebulous physiology in the hopes of eventually shifting the thought pattern to be adaptive rather than maladaptive. if we had a switch to flip that would enhance neural plasticity, this process would be much faster and much more effective. it would also be much more fraught with chances of inflicting damage, i'd assume.
whb07 8y ago
Are we though? Most of the time people look for a pill solution to major deficiencies in their lives. The doctor isn’t strapping you down and shoving the drugs into your mouth. Just like blaming the heroine drug epidemic at pharma and doctors, it’s weird how we never look at the individual who’s taking the pills in the first place. Prior to this epidemic we had other ones to which everyone was really trying to pin the blame on something else rather than a combination to include the individual as well. My buddy is a doctor and he’s aware of the lies/illusions patients live in. But if the doctor suggests such things like “exercise/clean up diet” for a few weeks before progressing to another step, that patient will never come back. They will also downrate the doctor on yelp like sites. So it becomes a troublesome proposition for that doctor.
- mnm1 8y ago
  Not sure what you're asking. If you're asking if we are stuck with shitty drugs that only work sometimes and require the patient to be dependent on them, I'd say yes. The legal consequences are too severe to argue otherwise. Even carrying out legitimate scientific studies is close to impossible. Of course one should lol at the individual. One should also look at society's role in promoting depression. But you're not going to fix society so you're not going to fix the individual who is made sick by that society. People need friends and contact with other people, not the isolation our society provides. They need stability in life and purpose, not the unemployment and abysmal life our society provides for most of its members. We can't fix these problems. Blaming the individual for things that are out of his control is silly. Making him dependent on a substance to function is criminal. All the while we have medicine that one doesn't need to be dependent on and can be used once in awhile for recovery but researchers are punished with jail time so that we increase the profits of the company making the drug that doesn't work. Who wouldn't rightfully be depressed in such a society and who wouldn't be angry at people who suggest that the individual's own behavior rather than the helplessness and hopelessness of our society are his fault alone (as our society does with this issue)?
- thatcat 8y ago
  Sounds like your friend decided to optimize his medical recommendations based on return business and has found reasons to blame the patients as a justification for operating on business metrics. The patients are probably doing the same thing, who needs to pay a doctor to tell them to diet and excercise?
kolinko 8y ago
If you have a neurotypical person, therapy, or psychedelics can bring a lasting result. But for a certain subset of population, with messed up serotonin pathways, antidepressants are the cure. Just like for a diabetic an insulin shot is.
- wu-ikkyu 8y ago
  >messed up serotonin pathways, antidepressants are the cure. Just like for a diabetic an insulin shot is. We should be careful when saying psychiatry is "just like" biological science, it's not. "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances While it's true many people have experienced positive results with antidepressants (many have with placebos as well), "messed up serotonin pathways" and "chemical imbalances" are marketing slogans, not scientific facts.
- adrice727 8y ago
  I read "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari[1] a couple weeks ago. He spends much of the first section on the research and history of antidepressants. One particularly interesting thing is that drugs that decrease serotonin levels are just as effective as those that increase serotonin. The same goes for drugs that alter levels of dopamine. It seems that a great majority of the effectiveness of antidepressants comes from the placebo effect, and the remainder is somewhat of a mystery. Also, doesn't cure imply something that is permanent and not just a temporary measure? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connections-johann-hari-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connectio...
  - llamaz 8y ago
    I don't know much about human biology, but if the relationship between dopamine/seratonin and depression/anxiety is more non-linear than linear, then the fact that both increasing and decreasing dopamine/seratonin is effective can make perfect sense. This sort of relationship - where small changes shift an equllibrium and result in a qualitative change - are common in nature and a forteriori human physiology.

everdev 8y ago

For those that haven't tried psychedelics but are curious about them in a personal growth / non-recreational way, on the Joe Rogan podcast I heard a good metaphor along these lines: Imagine your brain as a snowy hill. Each decision you make is like sledding down the hill, causing a slight indentation in the snow. The more times you make a decision, the deeper the groove, the faster you make the decision and the harder it is to try something different and escape the groove. Psychedelics is like fresh powder on the hill won't the grooves away so you can try new ways of thinking / new routes down the hill.

scarecrowbob 8y ago
It's not a bad analogy. I will add this: the shape of the hill stays the same, and mostly that fresh powder will melt back into those old ruts... the changes that these experiences bring seem, to me, more about knowing the ruts are there then they are about changing things in our lives. The change comes from the awareness of what can be done, because formerly "natural" things that are "just what people do" start to seem like artificial, learned behaviors. That's a powerful thing to grok, and easier to comprehend at the level of our nervous system with these substances. I haven't found these drugs to be super "fun" outside of the non-recreational ways of doing things, but the older I get the more I enjoy things that most folks find exceptionally boring. But I do find them very useful. For people who people worry about the long term effects of these things; I feel like for most healthy adults, if they "start small" the actual long-lasting effects are pretty minor. Here's an idea to consider for curious folks: if one or two psychedelic experiences could fundamentally alter your views on your life, you probably ought to consider the deep things in your life more often.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  yeah, one of the biggest misconceptions that i had was that it would be "fun" to try psychedelics. it wasn't fun, and it wasn't not-fun. it was different, and it was a learning experience. the long lasting effects were negligible for me. the biggest change was that i realized i might be "on the spectrum" but it isn't as though it was a life-changing realization. i agree regarding your final point. i do think that psychedelics are more "helpful" for people who are extremely extraverted or otherwise reluctant to reflect on themselves.

tranchms 8y ago

I’m a huge proponent of safe psychedelic use, specifically LSD. I was massively depressed and suicidal growing up (I had family problems, and two of my best friends killed them selves at 13 and 17). I dropped out of high school. I experimented with LSD and mushrooms around 17/18 years old. And while I didn’t realize it then, my life massively changed for the better. Maybe I grew up. Maybe I took responsibility for my life. Or maybe... there was a synergistic effect that accompanied my psychedelic use. My religious family thinks it was all their prayer and god’s work... because it’s a miracle. As I got older, the more I believe that it had a profound impact on my mind, and my ability to perceive the world and my sense of self differently, in an empowering way. I now am an evangelist for psychedelic use. I share it with whomever I feel would benefit, educating them on the research, on the negative stigmas, and emphasizing how necessary it is to respect the substance and approach it with care and good intent. I ended up attended a top 12 university. I worked hard. Most of my friends at that university experimented with LSD. None of them are crazy. They all are doing amazing things. They’re all deep and insightful. Psychedelics have gotten such a terrible reputation. I believe it is immensely helpful for anxiety and depression. I believe it needs to be adopted as a therapeutic alternative to current psychiatric therapies which are toxic and destructive and deadening by comparison. (I was on countless drugs growing up, dozens, prescribed by psychiatrists... they did nothing. Just made me more dead inside.) I also believe psychedelics open the mind in ways that only radical life experiences can. I think this mind expansion can be useful for learning, creating, and perceiving new ways of looking at the world.

pdgonzalez872 8y ago
So how do I get to experiment with this in a controlled and legal way these days?
- anythingnonidin 8y ago
  Go to one of these: https://psychedelicsociety.org.uk/experience-retreats https://psychedelicsociety.org.uk/experience-retreats https://www.mycomeditations.com/ https://www.mycomeditations.com/ https://synthesisretreat.com/ https://synthesisretreat.com/
- 8y ago

cageface 8y ago

I am overall pro psychedelics but I have seen them harm people first hand as well. They should be treated with a lot of caution and respect. I totally understand the urge to evangelise them but keep in mind that you're taking on a lot of responsibility when you encourage people to experiment with their brain chemistry.

tranchms 8y ago
I hear ya. I’ve yet to see it negatively effect anyone other than a bad trip, which, seen in the right light, can be a therapeutic experience. But I know they need to be respected and understood. I also realize that some people with a family history of mental disorders like schizophrenia, would be better off staying away. Like, some people have used psychedelics, and they go crazy. But how many of those people were crazy to begin with? How many would end up like that if they never tried psychedelics to begin with? I tend to think that the fear is over dramatized. But I do emphasize respecting its use in a profound way. It changes you. The upside is that real LSD is so rare, the chances of people finding it are slim to non. It’s distributed by so few people.
- cageface 8y ago
  I watched a good friend freak out in front of me on a bad trip. Almost thirty years later he's still not the same and needs antipsychotic medication to function. This kind of thing isn't common but it can definitely happen.
  - rufugee 8y ago
    It's entirely possible that LSD uncovered or accentuated an underlying flaw in your friend's psyche...
    - cageface 8y ago
      It probably did but that flaw wasn't obvious at all beforehand. He was a bit eccentric but also a really bright and funny guy with a lot of friends and a very dedicated student.

acd 8y ago

Psychedelics such as LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline has the ability to treat long term depression. They seem to allow you to step out of the box in other words get you a truly new perspective on the world. From what I can understand these drugs alter the brain area responsible for emotions the amygdala. I would go as far as to say people with long term depression needs reprogramming of their brain and one way to accomplish that is Psychedelics. This is not something one should self administer when depressed. For those who tried above substances did it change your brain for the better? Also I belive Psychedelic drugs could help people with autism spectrum for some. People with autism also be helped with a different perspective on the world. Psilocybin and Depression https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-drugs-brain-repair-lsd-depression-anxiety-lsd-dmt-amphetamines-ketamine-a8395511.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-drugs-...

dgzl 8y ago
> For those who tried above substances did it change your brain for the better? That's a tough question to answer, but I can share my story and maybe you can glean from it. The truth is, drugs can do incredible things for the mind, body and soul, but the person must be able to handle the intensity, and their own craving. My upbringing was pretty rough: parents divorced when I was young and I was raised by my southern-Christian grandparents since I was five. My parents were very poor and my grandparents had already raised two kids on low income. I was fairly depressed growing up for many reasons related to my natural life. I'm first generation in my family to graduate University, let alone with a STEM degree, and my career provides a better salary than anyone in my family has ever had. It was a pleasant surprise for my family, and you'll understand after the next couple of paragraphs. I had stated smoking pot in middle School, alcohol came next, then ecstacy, codeine, mushrooms, and Acid, all before I graduated high school. College had shown me MDMA, DMT, cocaine, various opiates, and some research chemicals my friend kept around. Recently (late twenties) I had experimented with ketamine for the first time. In high school, when some friends and I started getting into ecstacy, it didn't take long before some of them became habitual users. At one point my friends would be taking it at school. I took this as a cautionary red flag, and reigned in my ecstasy use at the time. Sure enough, those friends became addicted to the sensations, and took life paths that would lead them to misery. This was a vital learning moment in my life. Around that same time in high school, I had arranged with other friends to take mushrooms together at their house. I ended up taking about 7 grams, which is -plenty-, and about twice as much as the most I've ever taken. The effects were good when they were good, but really bad when they were bad. Most of the time I couldn't arrange proper sentences, regular body functions seemed like foreign operations within myself, and everything I looked at had a Kaleidoscope-esque effect on it. At one point I summersaulted into my friends wall on the way to the bathroom, where I proceeded to fail to remember how bathrooms work, and pee all over myself. This experience has since kept me distant from mushrooms. Right into college, I had joined a political activist group and started making friends. While driving together to an overnight rally at the neighbor University, some friends in the group revealed to me that they regularly consume large amounts of psilocybin mushrooms. I didn't end up getting to know them well, but they seemed like nice and well-intended hippy-types attending college. A month ago, I went to an epic-level music festival where the only thing more prolific than music and water were drugs. While walking to find a restroom at sunrise, I came across a guy hanging in his campsite mumbling to himself. We started some conversion and he came back to our camp to hang. Later he revealed to us that he was coming down off a twenty strip (20 hits of LSD). That guy made for some interesting conversation. For me, more than any other type of drug I've tried, psychedelics do best at opening my mind. Other drugs have their purposes, but from these drugs, the effects are truly interesting. I feel like I'm able break down mental structures that exist in my mind, and recreate them in different ways, either for a real goal (relief from depression), or just for fun (hallucination, creative outlet). Once I found my footing with psychedelics, my experience became centered around allowing weird and non-conventional thoughts to take over my mind, until I I'm rethinking how everything workes and why things operate in today's life the way they do, and how with some wild creatively, we could have an entirely different reality that's more beneficial to us all. That, and dancing.

allthenews 8y ago

I am excited to see more positive coverage of psychedelics. But every time threads like these pop up, there are people who claim to know people who came away from a trip with some kind of psychosis/anxiety disorder. I haven't reviewed the literature in some years; can anyone recommend any modern sources which document rates of poor outcomes post trip? I feel like, while odds are in one's favor, these drugs can be a coin toss, I'd like a better feel for the odds.

vitro 8y ago

I cannot find the author of the quote, nor the quote itself, but it was something like this: "You should take psychedelics and then work hard to experience the same, but without psychedelics itself". I remember one guy posting about his experience with psychedelics and then with long period of yoga and meditation. Interesting thing was, that he described something similar. On psychedelics it was as if you would take a jet plane and got somewhere really fast. Yoga and meditation, on the other hand, take you same place but you have a time to look around during the process. It takes a lot of time, though, but also is safer. Interesting may be combining meditation and yoga with microdosing, which should still keep you on the safe side.

sametmax 8y ago
There are several meditations teaching that strongly advise to avoid mixing deugs and meditations. Some, like vipassana, even recommand to stop taking any drug prior practice.
jeffwass 8y ago
My friend in college gave a similar analogy as the quote in the first paragraph. He said psychadelics can open the door but then you go thru the door. You don’t just keep re-opening the door.

tuxxy 8y ago

Anecdotal info warning: A few years ago, I thought I was completely incapable of feeling happiness. I hadn't experienced it for a long time and was completely numb. I was chronically depressed for 4-6 years. I took shrooms from a friend at a security conference completely unaware of what I was getting into. For the first time in _years_, I felt truly happy. I have no idea, physiologically or psychologically, what happened, but when I woke up the next morning my entire world changed -- I didn't feel numb anymore. That day, my chronic depression ended. I have been depression free for a few years now. We _need_ more research for this.

andai 8y ago
I had a friend who was suicidal, and mushrooms were the only thing that helped him. He'd feel better for a week or two.
- innocentoldguy 8y ago
  I don't have any anecdotal stories to share. I just like shrooms.

yeukhon 8y ago

Drug makers do not understand what it is like to be psychotic and mentally ill. They need to experience them to truly understand how to develop drugs, because most of the drugs are ineffective and side effects are way too strong. John Nash has given up on his medication and instead rationalized his disability for the rest of his life, after his final discharge in 1970. It's unfortunate many people do not understand mental illness at all, and they think therapy and drugs can be cure people. They cannot. Mental illnesses are treatable, but they cannot be cured. Okay, I am done. I hate this world. Fuck these medications. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg Look at it. Ain't working. Ain't working, people. They ain't working. Ain't nobody gonna understand. I read enough papers to fully understand no drugs can help.

anythingnonidin 8y ago

There are some people in this thread asking for advice on using psychedelics. If you're in this thread and likely to use psychedelics, please do your research first. My recommendation is to at least thoroughly read the following resources before beginning: - https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/ https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/ (I started this website, it has quite a few users, and it's important that people who are likely to use psychedelics are aware of this info for everyone's benefit.) - Then, next perhaps the book "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide"

mettamage 8y ago

Counterpoint for shrooms 1. I took magic mushrooms (well truffles, Amsterdam, sold in smartshops, i.e. legal) and I felt a bit uncomfortable in my body and I felt like a kid. 2. I took magic truffles again (again Amsterdam) and I felt a lot uncomfortable in my body and was contemplating suicide. Fortunately I had on gray brain cell left that said "you can kill yourself, but only if you agree on it when you're sober and it's one week later." I locked myself in a bathroom with no windows. Yes, I could hurt myself in the bathroom, but I was fortunately to dumb to know how to do that. When the effect started cooling down it was a mix between a really bad trip and a really profound, meaningful yet really painful trip. When I came out of the trip and felt sober I got a lot of data to analyze about myself and that definitely helped me. Yet, god forbid if I didn't have that 1 gray brain cell that realized that I was on truffles and therefore not in my right mind. Needlessly to say, when I was sober I decided to live because life is one interesting big trip anyway :D One thing that I am realizing more and more: I really like myself sober. When I am sober I am capable of keeping my emotions in check. It's easier to love myself and all those things. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the insights.

moyya 8y ago
I can echo this sentiment, as a normally soft-spoken guy who was arrested while completely out of his mind on psilocybin. My perception of reality was utterly shattered; I thought I had died and that my mind was transported into a realm of eternal torture. I'll never forget the dread I experienced while being forced to the asphalt and handcuffed by police officers on the side of the road. They took me to a hospital where I believed the medical staff were preparing to physically mutilate me (keep in mind, I was handcuffed the entire time...I felt helpless). When a nurse asked my name and address, I just broke down and started bawling. Apparently they gave me a sedative, and I woke up later to find my family sitting around me crying. Psychedelics have an amazing propensity for good, but they can also destroy you. Tread carefully.
- iamforreal 8y ago
  Sober trip sitters are a requirement, in my experience. Like, cigs and alcohol at most for them

openfuture 8y ago

For those who want to walk this road I'll share some insights that I think would have helped me progress faster. You will need to face every thought that you normally would censor due to shame, those include (usually in this order): sexual thoughts, psychotic thoughts and religious thoughts. Then you will reach true vulnerability and loneliness (which is the prerequisite for truly connecting with others). Any 'spiritual path' will take you through the same process but psychadelics do it faster meaning there is less control (i.e. less feeling of safety) however this can be a good thing since we often use the control afforded through for example yoga to avoid facing some flaw in our methodology. As always I recommend patience as the principal approach and an absolute belief that the true nature of the world is 'good'. The key insight is that everything is about relaxing and trusting the wisdom that lives deep down, it doesn't matter what you are doing, if you approach it in this way with balance and compassion as goals then you can feel better.

abrkn 8y ago
...and have a trip sitter.

hammock 8y ago

> Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity Glad to see public research is coming out on this, and it's not a brand new insight. Pretty sure that's why the CIA were using them in MK ULTRA mind-control experiments.

EGreg 8y ago

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-trip-1531932587 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-tr...

p1mrx 8y ago

I'd like to see research comparing the effectiveness of cannabis in small doses, against other psychedelics. If your goal is to benefit the largest number of people, then it makes sense to start with a substance that a significant fraction of the population can access without advanced social skills and risk tolerance.

noddy1 8y ago

I had an acid trip with an agonizing comedown that made me really rethink my life and priorities. As a result of that day I began the path to go to medical school, despite everyone including my parents telling me it was unrealistic. I'm just finishing specialist training in anaesthesiology and my life is great and I pretty much thank LSD for the whole thing.

red75prime 8y ago

I would prefer something which promotes neural plasticity without showy side effects.

all_usernames 8y ago

Surprised there's been hardly any mention of Michael Pollan's new book. He's the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and most recently How to Change Your Mind -- mostly about the recent advances in the study and therapeutic uses of psychedelics. There's also an accessible chapter or two on the latest neurophysiology findings on the psychedelic or mystical state of consciousness. The book goes into some detail about a few FDA-approved clinical trials for MDMA and LSD-assisted psychotherapy underway, some approaching Stage 3 -- these are mainly the result of over 15 years of work by MAPS[1] -- if Stage 2 results are anywhere near as successful as the small Stage 1 trials, we're pretty likely to see legal and widespread adoption for the treatment of PTSD, end-of-life anxiety, and/or depression. [1] http://www.maps.org/ http://www.maps.org/