11 ms·

Johns Hopkins Launches Center for Psychedelic Research

452 points by infodocket 7y ago

Ancalagon 7y ago
I personally haven't taken any psychedelics, but if this produces some meaningful therapeutic methods then I am 100% for it.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  It can change your life...but it can also change your life.
sova 7y ago
Our nation has been in a fully impaired state since fearmongering the 70s caused LSD to become a Schedule 1 substance, more illegal than Cocaine. Hopefully meaningful research will result in legislative changes allowing more people access to beneficial and potentially lifechanging medicines and experiences. It seems that the cat is out of the proverbial petri dish compared to that era, and now it's only a matter of time before these relatively new pharmacological compounds (and ancient sources like Morning Glories and Psilocybin) are rigorously investigated, either at home or abroad. It is lovely for the most medically advanced nation to grab the reins on such a thing, there's nothing but benefit when we consider we've been at the rock bottom of Psychedelic Research for 4+ decades.
- monomyth 7y ago
  I think we were at the rock bottom of Psychedelic Medical Research, research (search?) in Psychedelics never really stopped.
- robocat 7y ago
  But the teens and twenties of the '60s & '70s are now in their 50s to 70s. Maybe they have some clout? You can probably name some "capitalist hippies" with money and influence.
halleonard 7y ago
A family member was a patient in the Psilocybin study dealing with cancer / end of life anxiety and the experience utterly transformed her life in a positive way. Seeing this center open brings tears to my eyes.
- jcims 7y ago
  Do you happen to have any more info on this?
  - b0tch7 7y ago
    Read How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan!! https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/B07B1V3RF5/ref=sr_1_3?crid=EROMFS1IY7LV&keywords=how+to+change+your+mind+michael+pollan&qid=1567657534&s=gateway&sprefix=how+to+change+your+m%2Caps%2C341&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transc...
    - andy_ppp 7y ago
      If you want to hear what Pollen has to say before buying the book: https://tim.blog/2019/03/21/michael-pollan-sxsw/ https://tim.blog/2019/03/21/michael-pollan-sxsw/
    - jcims 7y ago
      Will definitely check it out thx. Also interested in any active studies for folks with cancer like GP mentioned.
    - abyssin 7y ago
      I spent some years reading on the topic of psychedelics and this book would have saved me a lot of time. It's an enjoyable read, a nice story, and it covers most aspects of the topic.
- MarkMc 7y ago
  I have a close family member also dealing with cancer/end of life anxiety - to the point where she cannot sleep and gets physical stomach pains from anxiety. She has tried meditation but I don't think it's been very effective for her. And we are in Australia and so cannot sign up for the John's Hopkins study. Can anyone recommend another effective way to reduce her anxiety?
roymurdock 7y ago
Lots of revived interest in psychedelics that is finally coming front and center in no small part due to Michael Pollan's recent book "How to Change Your Mind". Rolland Griffiths plays a pivotal role in the book (and in the real life advocacy and study of psychedelics) and Pollan probably seeded the ideas of psilocybin's potential into the right ears around Berkeley and on his book tour [1]. Think there's a ton of potential here and looking forward to what research comes out of this new group. [1] The center's operational expenses for the first five years will be covered by private funding from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and four philanthropists: Tim Ferriss, author and technology investor; Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress; Blake Mycoskie, founder of the shoe and accessory brand TOMS; and investor Craig Nerenberg.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Pollan's book pushed something that was obviously growing fast over the edge into a lot of popular awareness. That awareness is probably what is necessary to really get these things started and accepted socially which translates into regulatory acceptance. Sadly everything is a popularity contest.
- gravelc 7y ago
  Suspect Joe Rogan has also been a fair influence too. His podcast has a massive and varied fan base, and he's a pretty consistent promoter of the benefits of psychedelics.
  - imesh 7y ago
    I think it's just the world. Joe Rogan is popular because currently "Joe Rogan Things" are growing (Weed, fitness, nutrition, MMA, psychadelics). These are all trending.
    - cjhveal 7y ago
      There's likely a feedback loop involved. Commentators who happen to talk about trending topics become popular; their popular platform can bring those topics to a broader audience; that broader audience stokes the hype around the trend and builds the audience further through (social media-amplified) word of mouth.
anon9001 7y ago
At minimum, those substances would be very useful in a therapy setting with a trusted therapist. They might also be useful on their own merits, as in, if you have severe depression and eat a bunch of mushrooms maybe you won't be so depressed anymore. Given the current state of anti-depressants, it certainly seems worth a shot.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  Hi! You are correct. The first usages of MDMA (the defining ingredient in ecstasy) were in therapy. If you have severe depression (or severe anything really), I would not recommend experimenting without an experienced guide. Think of it like like scuba diving or sky diving: first you learn how with those who already know.
  - jokowueu 7y ago
    Some say mdma without a guide is still good but you never know . Rick doblin once got a call from a friend who was treating a woman who had depression with mdma and what happened was that she remembered her rape and her being almost murdered ,this memory was complelty blocked by her brain and mdma brought them back . More mdma did not work so Rick doblin decided lsd was better equipped to treat her which worked . There is a video of her speaking about what happened many years later
    - RangerScience 7y ago
      They can all still be good without a guide, just like once you've learned to dive you do it on your own. I think a huge part of having a guide the first few times is just so you experience it all being OK, so that if on a solo jaunt it's starting to not be OK you've got some understanding that it'll pass as, physiologically, so does the substance.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Yes, these drugs show much promise for mental health. I'd love to see them used not only for those suffering from depression, anxiety, smoking, alcoholism, OCD, and so forth, but I'd be interested to see programmers, engineers, musicians, athletes, and all sorts of groups take these drugs and see how it affects their lives. Based on Michael Pollan's book, there's good reason to argue that neuro-typical individuals can benefit very highly, as well as those with disorders in need of treatment.
jjmorrison 7y ago
So exciting to see. What does society look like when science starts investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens?
- omarchowdhury 7y ago
  > What does society look like when science starts investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens? I doubt that will happen to any effective or substantial degree, "science" is concerned with the quantitative and objective reproducibility. It is impossible for a scientist to fully assimilate the state of someone who is experiencing a "satori", without them either being that person or also experiencing a satori themselves. And if they achieve that, which is unlikely, they are back at square one: how are they going to relay the satori to other scientists for documentation and further research: what is there to research with regards to inner experience when the only known modes of knowledge in science are all outward? Rather, scientists look for effects with whatever physical tools are available to them, such as changes in brain center blood flow; and then they tend to conflate the effects as the causes. IE. it's the changes in the brain causing the satori, not the satori causing the changes in the brain! A thunderclap under the clear blue sky All beings on earth open their eyes; Everything under heaven bows together; Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances. Wumen Huikai
- hic 7y ago
  Several recent books on the topic present psychedelics as a tool for Science. Most link to the famous quote from Stan Grof on psychedelics as the "microscope" for the mind (or telescope). It really does not look like getting through the Eastern philosophy lens... And the new center's backers seem motivated by the tooling potential too... --- The books I refer to include Pollan's recent book (cited several times in this thread), some of Grof publications, "A Really Good Day" by Ayelet Waldman, a plethora of "reports" from people's experience on Medium, and preview on Consciousness Medicine from Françoise Bourzat.
- peteretep 7y ago
  > investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens Is taking drugs under controlled conditions something that’s especially Eastern?
sizzzzlerz 7y ago
50 years too late. Of course, 50+ years ago, it was the hippies doing the experimentation. As The Man hated the hippies and the youth culture of the time, they instituted these draconian drug laws we've lived under since making it impossible to determine whether drugs like LSD or psilocybin or cannabis might have beneficial therapeutic effects.
- michaelvoz 7y ago
  Better late than never?
  - sizzzzlerz 7y ago
    Not much comfort to the thousands (millions?) of people that may have found some comfort in these drugs.
    - monomyth 7y ago
      True, but could be millions more.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      But a lot of comfort to the future millions of the people who would have had the same frustrating experience as the previous generation who couldn't find the comfort in those drugs due to their criminalization.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Fair enough, but then on the other hand who knows where a continuation of widespread carefree usage of psychedelics would have led us....perhaps to a relative utopia, perhaps to societal chaos that would have resulted in a ban that would have lasted far more than 50 years. Either one seems perfectly plausible to me.
- buildzr 7y ago
  But don't worry, we got those opiates, A++.
- 7y ago
patientplatypus 7y ago
"You're not being asked to believe it," said Dr. Robert. "The real thing isn't a proposition; it's a state of being. We don't teach our children creeds or get them worked up over emotionally charged symbols. When it's time for them to learn the deepest truths of religion, we set them to climb a precipice and then give them four hundred milligrams of revelation. Two firsthand experiences of reality, from which any reasonably intelligent boy or girl can derive a very good idea of what's what."
- mistermann 7y ago
  Island, by Aldous Huxley? Possibly the full text: https://archive.org/stream/AmusingOurselvesToDeathByNeil203/IslandByAldousHuxley-281__djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/AmusingOurselvesToDeathByNeil203/...
  - patientplatypus 7y ago
    My favorite book of all time.
in3d 7y ago
There is now also more research about Ketamine. It looks just as promising and a first drug (nasal spray Spravato) was recently approved by the FDA for treatment-resistant depression.
- leetbulb 7y ago
  Wow, that stuff costs a pretty penny. From the Wiki: > The cost of the nasal spray as of 2019 will be US$4,700 to $6,800 for the first month.
  - Synaesthesia 7y ago
    It's ridiculous, you're paying thousands of dollars for a cheap medicine, to be injected in a medical setting. I mean it's typical of how medical things work. But you can DIY that for like way less if you really wanna. Just do a bit of research.
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  It's certainly not the cure-all that the internet would have you believe, but it is another tool that can be used to try and help treat depression.
DidISayTooMuch 7y ago
Look at my boy Timmy Ferris go, taking the lead on this!
Zarath 7y ago
Bit of a contrarian take here, but this is the first step towards capitalism getting its grip on a transformative and disruptive thing and coopting it for its purposes. I'm all for decriminalization, but I get nervous when something subversive becomes just another commodity.
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  I don't know if that's contrarian really. It's just your basic "My Favorite Band was way better before they got super popular had to go mainstream". And my take is that that argument should probably stick to fashion and cultural issues and stay out of medical discussions.
  - pasquinelli 7y ago
    Is it that, or could it be reasonable anxiety about powerful substances becoming an avenue for corporate profit? Opioids are a useful class of drugs, but they've been managed by the profit motive and that's caused havoc that's killed thousands and may leave people who should be on them in terrible pain because of an over correction.
    - spats1990 7y ago
      That's a valid concern, but psychedelics aren't really physically addictive the way opiates are. And given the possible use cases described by e.g. Michael Pollan, it's hard to imagine them being heavily overprescribed by doctors, if they ever even reach the stage of being a generally prescribable drug at all.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  This has been a major topic of conversation in the psychonaut community. It seems like the community is better prepared to stave off the capitalist take over. The existence of organizations such as MAPS and others already conducting studies and preemptively creating 'prior art' is a good sign. If you are curious about the topic, I couldn't recommend the Psychedelic Salon podcast enough.
zwilliamson 7y ago
If you are in the Bay Area, and are interested in Fungi checkout the debut of renowned Mycologist Paul Stamets film called Fantastic Fungi. He will be speaking afterwards as well taking questions. https://fantasticfungi.com/castro/ https://fantasticfungi.com/castro/
sbussard 7y ago
I've heard of Stranger Things
mooselumps 7y ago
Makes sense... I used to smoke pot with Johnny Hopkins in high school
MrLeap 7y ago
This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso. This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure. For about an hour, the world remained as it always had. Then, I started periodically feeling something akin to an electric shock pass through my body. Electricity is only a useful explanation in so far as how long the pulses lasted. On and off in an instant. The shocks were like momentary flashes of comfort. In the time between seconds when those flashes occurred, the chair I was sitting on was softer, my clothes were more comfortable and I felt a glow of appreciation for the people in the room with me. I decided to set a watch and eat more general tso on the hour. Eventually the pulses blurred from spikes to rolling hills. I realized they happened when I was stimulated by something beautiful. The mundane became beautiful. The contrast and saturation of my vision increased. My brain streamed my visual frame buffer through a pixel shader that made everything photogenic, perfectly tone mapped. It was like HDR for the eyes. Beauty is something I had never had a refined eye for. Stuff looked "neat". This felt like a visual sense that perhaps existed normally in other people, but for me I was only borrowing. Then my alarm went off. Time for more chicken! While I was eating, we started watching dune. I was stunned by how colorful David Lynch's dune is. Vibrant purple and green matte backgrounds. I would have told you the movie was all desert tone yesterday. I shut off my alarm until the movie was done. I ate one more scoop of general tso after that. Then, I laid down in the dark. I was able to visualize incredibly complicated 3d shapes. I could persist those shapes, rotate, scale and modify them while keeping the image at the forefront. This capability was clearly an enhancement. I got up, opened blender and "printed" some of the things created entirely mentally. After I laid back down, I thought about my childhood. I thought about frayed relationships and trauma I had experienced. Every negative experience I could come up with bounced off simple epiphany after simple epiphany. Prior to this, I was under a crushing amount of stress. I felt like I was being hunted, under attack in a world devoid of merit. I was misanthropic. I thought about the situation I was in, and determined I was fine. Everything is going to be okay. We're all bouncing amidst a manifold, influenced by each other. The whole of humanity, even the crabs pulling at our feet, is beautiful. Quite a few people try to pierce the manifold to transcend the chaos. Maybe we'll never do it? It's valuable to try regardless. The evil in my life became re-framed as force that might send me towards the boundary. Approaching the boundary is the goal. Even if I fail at everything, I'm better for trying, even after death.
deleted 7y ago
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llamataboot 7y ago
I like that they specifically call out research on consciousness/mind as well as more straightforward therapeutic studies. This has been a long time coming.
m0zg 7y ago
A bit of a contrarian view. This stuff tends to go like a pendulum and it could very well swing too far in the other direction, and a lot of people will get fucked up in this case. We're seeing this with marijuana right now. I live in a state where it's legal, I voted for legalization, and I think it's wonderful that people aren't being thrown in jail for possession anymore. But I categorically DO NOT want this shit to be aggressively marketed to the public and normalized. It is harmful in most cases. Smoking MJ is not that much better than smoking tobacco, if at all. Certainly not great for the lungs. You can get really ill from THC if you consume a lot for an extended period of time, especially if you're fat, which most people are nowadays. Long term impact of TCH on the brain is poorly understood, etc. Now, granted it's better than alcohol in most ways. You're very unlikely to even contemplate driving a car while stoned, for example, let alone be able to do so successfully. You're unlikely to be aggressive. You're unlikely to destroy your liver by smoking weed, and so on. But that does not mean that it should be something people just do willy nilly IMO. Same with psychedelics. I'd be more OK with it if it's legal but socially frowned upon, and all marketing is forbidden.
- scarecrowbob 7y ago
  I am skeptical that it's a big problem. I'm not a fan of cannabis, but I'm living in a state where it is legal. I'm really not seeing any worse effects, I think. It's just as available to me as it has ever been... I've never not been able to find it and that's pretty common among the people I know. Unlike cannabis, most folks I know who don't have a lot of other pathologies will quit doing psychedelics. That's purely anecdotal, but I know quite a lot of people who've worked with both these drugs. Also, it's not the kind of stuff that markets well. It's incredibly cheap to produce... in the case of mushrooms they are easy to grow. The market is more or less already saturated, because the folks who really want that experience just go find it. I guess my main thought is this: tripping is often quite scary, and most people who do it a lot eventually give it up for that reason. At the same time, of the literal thousands of people I know personally who've used psychedelics, none have had their lives ruined over a single, first trip. So I'm skeptical that even if it were marketed like weed, it would actually result in a problem.
- mistermann 7y ago
rblion 7y ago
seven ayahuasca ceremonies and two bufo ceremonies over the course of two years changed my life in the deepest way. Grateful that people are starting to realize this is MEDICINE.
techer 7y ago
Just started reading "Moksha" by Aldus Huxley. He uses the term - psychodelic.
scarejunba 7y ago
Thank fuck. LSD changed my life. As I bounced around inside the confines of my own mind I became so much of a better person. More cognizant of my failings and the insecurities that made me less than I could be. I came out capable of talking about them as things and not inherent and true parts of me. I came out capable of taking intensity of feeling in any form (shame, grief, anger, pleasure, joy) and directing it towards something good. It's a travesty that acid is still illegal, but fortunately it's really easy to get. I started using it originally as a party drug, funnily enough. But it's much more than that.
a_imho 7y ago
Admittedly I'm very skeptical of big pharma, can't help but read it as we are stuck with innovation, let's just dust this old thing off and give it a facelift. Afterall ingesting psychedelic substances can be made legal when pharma profits from it.
malicioususer11 7y ago
the crux of the issue: taking psychedelics fundamentally turns you into your own doctor in a very real way, making a research center redundant and the idea of it being prescribed, ludacris. cant wait to see what happens next. :3
ptah 7y ago
Hopefully it is proper research and not just trying to find clever ways to make money from it
bigbluedots 7y ago
It will be great to finally find out whether psychedelics are able to help people, and/or vause harm. Anecdotes like 'I tripped hard and it cured my stress/depression/whatever!', while interesting, are not data points.
RyanAF7 7y ago
"I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins! It was Sloan Ketterin and Johnny Hopkins and they were blazing that shit up every day." This might be true.

452 points by infodocket 7y ago

I personally haven't taken any psychedelics, but if this produces some meaningful therapeutic methods then I am 100% for it.

0x8BADF00D 7y ago
It can change your life...but it can also change your life.

sova 7y ago

Our nation has been in a fully impaired state since fearmongering the 70s caused LSD to become a Schedule 1 substance, more illegal than Cocaine. Hopefully meaningful research will result in legislative changes allowing more people access to beneficial and potentially lifechanging medicines and experiences. It seems that the cat is out of the proverbial petri dish compared to that era, and now it's only a matter of time before these relatively new pharmacological compounds (and ancient sources like Morning Glories and Psilocybin) are rigorously investigated, either at home or abroad. It is lovely for the most medically advanced nation to grab the reins on such a thing, there's nothing but benefit when we consider we've been at the rock bottom of Psychedelic Research for 4+ decades.

monomyth 7y ago
I think we were at the rock bottom of Psychedelic Medical Research, research (search?) in Psychedelics never really stopped.
robocat 7y ago
But the teens and twenties of the '60s & '70s are now in their 50s to 70s. Maybe they have some clout? You can probably name some "capitalist hippies" with money and influence.

halleonard 7y ago

A family member was a patient in the Psilocybin study dealing with cancer / end of life anxiety and the experience utterly transformed her life in a positive way. Seeing this center open brings tears to my eyes.

jcims 7y ago
Do you happen to have any more info on this?
- b0tch7 7y ago
  Read How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan!! https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/B07B1V3RF5/ref=sr_1_3?crid=EROMFS1IY7LV&keywords=how+to+change+your+mind+michael+pollan&qid=1567657534&s=gateway&sprefix=how+to+change+your+m%2Caps%2C341&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transc...
  - andy_ppp 7y ago
    If you want to hear what Pollen has to say before buying the book: https://tim.blog/2019/03/21/michael-pollan-sxsw/ https://tim.blog/2019/03/21/michael-pollan-sxsw/
  - jcims 7y ago
    Will definitely check it out thx. Also interested in any active studies for folks with cancer like GP mentioned.
  - abyssin 7y ago
    I spent some years reading on the topic of psychedelics and this book would have saved me a lot of time. It's an enjoyable read, a nice story, and it covers most aspects of the topic.
MarkMc 7y ago
I have a close family member also dealing with cancer/end of life anxiety - to the point where she cannot sleep and gets physical stomach pains from anxiety. She has tried meditation but I don't think it's been very effective for her. And we are in Australia and so cannot sign up for the John's Hopkins study. Can anyone recommend another effective way to reduce her anxiety?

roymurdock 7y ago

Lots of revived interest in psychedelics that is finally coming front and center in no small part due to Michael Pollan's recent book "How to Change Your Mind". Rolland Griffiths plays a pivotal role in the book (and in the real life advocacy and study of psychedelics) and Pollan probably seeded the ideas of psilocybin's potential into the right ears around Berkeley and on his book tour [1]. Think there's a ton of potential here and looking forward to what research comes out of this new group. [1] The center's operational expenses for the first five years will be covered by private funding from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and four philanthropists: Tim Ferriss, author and technology investor; Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress; Blake Mycoskie, founder of the shoe and accessory brand TOMS; and investor Craig Nerenberg.

colechristensen 7y ago
Pollan's book pushed something that was obviously growing fast over the edge into a lot of popular awareness. That awareness is probably what is necessary to really get these things started and accepted socially which translates into regulatory acceptance. Sadly everything is a popularity contest.
gravelc 7y ago
Suspect Joe Rogan has also been a fair influence too. His podcast has a massive and varied fan base, and he's a pretty consistent promoter of the benefits of psychedelics.
- imesh 7y ago
  I think it's just the world. Joe Rogan is popular because currently "Joe Rogan Things" are growing (Weed, fitness, nutrition, MMA, psychadelics). These are all trending.
  - cjhveal 7y ago
    There's likely a feedback loop involved. Commentators who happen to talk about trending topics become popular; their popular platform can bring those topics to a broader audience; that broader audience stokes the hype around the trend and builds the audience further through (social media-amplified) word of mouth.

anon9001 7y ago

At minimum, those substances would be very useful in a therapy setting with a trusted therapist. They might also be useful on their own merits, as in, if you have severe depression and eat a bunch of mushrooms maybe you won't be so depressed anymore. Given the current state of anti-depressants, it certainly seems worth a shot.

RangerScience 7y ago
Hi! You are correct. The first usages of MDMA (the defining ingredient in ecstasy) were in therapy. If you have severe depression (or severe anything really), I would not recommend experimenting without an experienced guide. Think of it like like scuba diving or sky diving: first you learn how with those who already know.
- jokowueu 7y ago
  Some say mdma without a guide is still good but you never know . Rick doblin once got a call from a friend who was treating a woman who had depression with mdma and what happened was that she remembered her rape and her being almost murdered ,this memory was complelty blocked by her brain and mdma brought them back . More mdma did not work so Rick doblin decided lsd was better equipped to treat her which worked . There is a video of her speaking about what happened many years later
  - RangerScience 7y ago
    They can all still be good without a guide, just like once you've learned to dive you do it on your own. I think a huge part of having a guide the first few times is just so you experience it all being OK, so that if on a solo jaunt it's starting to not be OK you've got some understanding that it'll pass as, physiologically, so does the substance.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Yes, these drugs show much promise for mental health. I'd love to see them used not only for those suffering from depression, anxiety, smoking, alcoholism, OCD, and so forth, but I'd be interested to see programmers, engineers, musicians, athletes, and all sorts of groups take these drugs and see how it affects their lives. Based on Michael Pollan's book, there's good reason to argue that neuro-typical individuals can benefit very highly, as well as those with disorders in need of treatment.

jjmorrison 7y ago

So exciting to see. What does society look like when science starts investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens?

omarchowdhury 7y ago
> What does society look like when science starts investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens? I doubt that will happen to any effective or substantial degree, "science" is concerned with the quantitative and objective reproducibility. It is impossible for a scientist to fully assimilate the state of someone who is experiencing a "satori", without them either being that person or also experiencing a satori themselves. And if they achieve that, which is unlikely, they are back at square one: how are they going to relay the satori to other scientists for documentation and further research: what is there to research with regards to inner experience when the only known modes of knowledge in science are all outward? Rather, scientists look for effects with whatever physical tools are available to them, such as changes in brain center blood flow; and then they tend to conflate the effects as the causes. IE. it's the changes in the brain causing the satori, not the satori causing the changes in the brain! A thunderclap under the clear blue sky All beings on earth open their eyes; Everything under heaven bows together; Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances. Wumen Huikai
hic 7y ago
Several recent books on the topic present psychedelics as a tool for Science. Most link to the famous quote from Stan Grof on psychedelics as the "microscope" for the mind (or telescope). It really does not look like getting through the Eastern philosophy lens... And the new center's backers seem motivated by the tooling potential too... --- The books I refer to include Pollan's recent book (cited several times in this thread), some of Grof publications, "A Really Good Day" by Ayelet Waldman, a plethora of "reports" from people's experience on Medium, and preview on Consciousness Medicine from Françoise Bourzat.
peteretep 7y ago
> investigating consciousness with a more eastern philosophy lens Is taking drugs under controlled conditions something that’s especially Eastern?

sizzzzlerz 7y ago

50 years too late. Of course, 50+ years ago, it was the hippies doing the experimentation. As The Man hated the hippies and the youth culture of the time, they instituted these draconian drug laws we've lived under since making it impossible to determine whether drugs like LSD or psilocybin or cannabis might have beneficial therapeutic effects.

michaelvoz 7y ago
Better late than never?
- sizzzzlerz 7y ago
  Not much comfort to the thousands (millions?) of people that may have found some comfort in these drugs.
  - monomyth 7y ago
    True, but could be millions more.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    But a lot of comfort to the future millions of the people who would have had the same frustrating experience as the previous generation who couldn't find the comfort in those drugs due to their criminalization.
mistermann 7y ago
Fair enough, but then on the other hand who knows where a continuation of widespread carefree usage of psychedelics would have led us....perhaps to a relative utopia, perhaps to societal chaos that would have resulted in a ban that would have lasted far more than 50 years. Either one seems perfectly plausible to me.
buildzr 7y ago
But don't worry, we got those opiates, A++.
7y ago

patientplatypus 7y ago

"You're not being asked to believe it," said Dr. Robert. "The real thing isn't a proposition; it's a state of being. We don't teach our children creeds or get them worked up over emotionally charged symbols. When it's time for them to learn the deepest truths of religion, we set them to climb a precipice and then give them four hundred milligrams of revelation. Two firsthand experiences of reality, from which any reasonably intelligent boy or girl can derive a very good idea of what's what."

mistermann 7y ago
Island, by Aldous Huxley? Possibly the full text: https://archive.org/stream/AmusingOurselvesToDeathByNeil203/IslandByAldousHuxley-281__djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/AmusingOurselvesToDeathByNeil203/...
- patientplatypus 7y ago
  My favorite book of all time.

in3d 7y ago

There is now also more research about Ketamine. It looks just as promising and a first drug (nasal spray Spravato) was recently approved by the FDA for treatment-resistant depression.

leetbulb 7y ago
Wow, that stuff costs a pretty penny. From the Wiki: > The cost of the nasal spray as of 2019 will be US$4,700 to $6,800 for the first month.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  It's ridiculous, you're paying thousands of dollars for a cheap medicine, to be injected in a medical setting. I mean it's typical of how medical things work. But you can DIY that for like way less if you really wanna. Just do a bit of research.
toomanybeersies 7y ago
It's certainly not the cure-all that the internet would have you believe, but it is another tool that can be used to try and help treat depression.

DidISayTooMuch 7y ago

Look at my boy Timmy Ferris go, taking the lead on this!

Zarath 7y ago

Bit of a contrarian take here, but this is the first step towards capitalism getting its grip on a transformative and disruptive thing and coopting it for its purposes. I'm all for decriminalization, but I get nervous when something subversive becomes just another commodity.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
I don't know if that's contrarian really. It's just your basic "My Favorite Band was way better before they got super popular had to go mainstream". And my take is that that argument should probably stick to fashion and cultural issues and stay out of medical discussions.
- pasquinelli 7y ago
  Is it that, or could it be reasonable anxiety about powerful substances becoming an avenue for corporate profit? Opioids are a useful class of drugs, but they've been managed by the profit motive and that's caused havoc that's killed thousands and may leave people who should be on them in terrible pain because of an over correction.
  - spats1990 7y ago
    That's a valid concern, but psychedelics aren't really physically addictive the way opiates are. And given the possible use cases described by e.g. Michael Pollan, it's hard to imagine them being heavily overprescribed by doctors, if they ever even reach the stage of being a generally prescribable drug at all.
dguaraglia 7y ago
This has been a major topic of conversation in the psychonaut community. It seems like the community is better prepared to stave off the capitalist take over. The existence of organizations such as MAPS and others already conducting studies and preemptively creating 'prior art' is a good sign. If you are curious about the topic, I couldn't recommend the Psychedelic Salon podcast enough.

zwilliamson 7y ago

If you are in the Bay Area, and are interested in Fungi checkout the debut of renowned Mycologist Paul Stamets film called Fantastic Fungi. He will be speaking afterwards as well taking questions. https://fantasticfungi.com/castro/ https://fantasticfungi.com/castro/

sbussard 7y ago

I've heard of Stranger Things

mooselumps 7y ago

Makes sense... I used to smoke pot with Johnny Hopkins in high school

MrLeap 7y ago

This probably isn't the place for it, but here's my anecdote to give background to why I think this is a step in a more humane direction than most. Once upon a time, I chopped up a bag of dry mushrooms and mixed them with some general tso chicken. I really love my general tso. This particular meal occurred during a point in my life where I was near my lowest. I was depressed, burned out, reeling from failure. For about an hour, the world remained as it always had. Then, I started periodically feeling something akin to an electric shock pass through my body. Electricity is only a useful explanation in so far as how long the pulses lasted. On and off in an instant. The shocks were like momentary flashes of comfort. In the time between seconds when those flashes occurred, the chair I was sitting on was softer, my clothes were more comfortable and I felt a glow of appreciation for the people in the room with me. I decided to set a watch and eat more general tso on the hour. Eventually the pulses blurred from spikes to rolling hills. I realized they happened when I was stimulated by something beautiful. The mundane became beautiful. The contrast and saturation of my vision increased. My brain streamed my visual frame buffer through a pixel shader that made everything photogenic, perfectly tone mapped. It was like HDR for the eyes. Beauty is something I had never had a refined eye for. Stuff looked "neat". This felt like a visual sense that perhaps existed normally in other people, but for me I was only borrowing. Then my alarm went off. Time for more chicken! While I was eating, we started watching dune. I was stunned by how colorful David Lynch's dune is. Vibrant purple and green matte backgrounds. I would have told you the movie was all desert tone yesterday. I shut off my alarm until the movie was done. I ate one more scoop of general tso after that. Then, I laid down in the dark. I was able to visualize incredibly complicated 3d shapes. I could persist those shapes, rotate, scale and modify them while keeping the image at the forefront. This capability was clearly an enhancement. I got up, opened blender and "printed" some of the things created entirely mentally. After I laid back down, I thought about my childhood. I thought about frayed relationships and trauma I had experienced. Every negative experience I could come up with bounced off simple epiphany after simple epiphany. Prior to this, I was under a crushing amount of stress. I felt like I was being hunted, under attack in a world devoid of merit. I was misanthropic. I thought about the situation I was in, and determined I was fine. Everything is going to be okay. We're all bouncing amidst a manifold, influenced by each other. The whole of humanity, even the crabs pulling at our feet, is beautiful. Quite a few people try to pierce the manifold to transcend the chaos. Maybe we'll never do it? It's valuable to try regardless. The evil in my life became re-framed as force that might send me towards the boundary. Approaching the boundary is the goal. Even if I fail at everything, I'm better for trying, even after death.

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llamataboot 7y ago

I like that they specifically call out research on consciousness/mind as well as more straightforward therapeutic studies. This has been a long time coming.

m0zg 7y ago

A bit of a contrarian view. This stuff tends to go like a pendulum and it could very well swing too far in the other direction, and a lot of people will get fucked up in this case. We're seeing this with marijuana right now. I live in a state where it's legal, I voted for legalization, and I think it's wonderful that people aren't being thrown in jail for possession anymore. But I categorically DO NOT want this shit to be aggressively marketed to the public and normalized. It is harmful in most cases. Smoking MJ is not that much better than smoking tobacco, if at all. Certainly not great for the lungs. You can get really ill from THC if you consume a lot for an extended period of time, especially if you're fat, which most people are nowadays. Long term impact of TCH on the brain is poorly understood, etc. Now, granted it's better than alcohol in most ways. You're very unlikely to even contemplate driving a car while stoned, for example, let alone be able to do so successfully. You're unlikely to be aggressive. You're unlikely to destroy your liver by smoking weed, and so on. But that does not mean that it should be something people just do willy nilly IMO. Same with psychedelics. I'd be more OK with it if it's legal but socially frowned upon, and all marketing is forbidden.

scarecrowbob 7y ago
I am skeptical that it's a big problem. I'm not a fan of cannabis, but I'm living in a state where it is legal. I'm really not seeing any worse effects, I think. It's just as available to me as it has ever been... I've never not been able to find it and that's pretty common among the people I know. Unlike cannabis, most folks I know who don't have a lot of other pathologies will quit doing psychedelics. That's purely anecdotal, but I know quite a lot of people who've worked with both these drugs. Also, it's not the kind of stuff that markets well. It's incredibly cheap to produce... in the case of mushrooms they are easy to grow. The market is more or less already saturated, because the folks who really want that experience just go find it. I guess my main thought is this: tripping is often quite scary, and most people who do it a lot eventually give it up for that reason. At the same time, of the literal thousands of people I know personally who've used psychedelics, none have had their lives ruined over a single, first trip. So I'm skeptical that even if it were marketed like weed, it would actually result in a problem.
mistermann 7y ago

rblion 7y ago

seven ayahuasca ceremonies and two bufo ceremonies over the course of two years changed my life in the deepest way. Grateful that people are starting to realize this is MEDICINE.

techer 7y ago

Just started reading "Moksha" by Aldus Huxley. He uses the term - psychodelic.

scarejunba 7y ago

Thank fuck. LSD changed my life. As I bounced around inside the confines of my own mind I became so much of a better person. More cognizant of my failings and the insecurities that made me less than I could be. I came out capable of talking about them as things and not inherent and true parts of me. I came out capable of taking intensity of feeling in any form (shame, grief, anger, pleasure, joy) and directing it towards something good. It's a travesty that acid is still illegal, but fortunately it's really easy to get. I started using it originally as a party drug, funnily enough. But it's much more than that.

a_imho 7y ago

Admittedly I'm very skeptical of big pharma, can't help but read it as we are stuck with innovation, let's just dust this old thing off and give it a facelift. Afterall ingesting psychedelic substances can be made legal when pharma profits from it.

malicioususer11 7y ago

the crux of the issue: taking psychedelics fundamentally turns you into your own doctor in a very real way, making a research center redundant and the idea of it being prescribed, ludacris. cant wait to see what happens next. :3

ptah 7y ago

Hopefully it is proper research and not just trying to find clever ways to make money from it

bigbluedots 7y ago

It will be great to finally find out whether psychedelics are able to help people, and/or vause harm. Anecdotes like 'I tripped hard and it cured my stress/depression/whatever!', while interesting, are not data points.

RyanAF7 7y ago

"I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins! It was Sloan Ketterin and Johnny Hopkins and they were blazing that shit up every day." This might be true.