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A Study of Meditation Under the Influence of Psilocybin
- DharmaSci 7y agoA book suggestion: Zen and the Brain – Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness By James H. Austin https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/zen-and-brain https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/zen-and-brain (Austin is a professor emeritus of neurology, neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner) Austin covers the effect of psychedelics and their effects relative to meditation but nothing about meditation on drugs if I remember correctly. The personal parts are easy to read. Neuroscience and chemistry are much harder. The reference and source notes section is valuable if you are doing research.
- qubex 7y agoOrdered!
- omarchowdhury 7y agoCombining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. When not taking psychedelics and meditating one will attempt to re-create or grasp after the pleasant sensations and thoughts previously experienced, which severs one from looking into the present moment as it is. This undistracted state of [the] ordinary mind is the meditation. One will understand it in due course. Gampopa (d. 1153)
- taneq 7y ago> This undistracted state of [the] ordinary mind is the meditation. What if your mind's not ordinary? (I don't mean 'oh so special and better', I just mean atypical).
- omarchowdhury 7y agoThen for you, that's ordinary.
- ptah 7y agoi agree, psychedelics can be used as an initiation experience before the real work of meditation begins
- jammygit 7y agoDepends on your view of meditation. It would interfere with that form of zazen that claims that zazen is the goal. For insight meditation, it would speed things up, no? Also, if ever someone had a bad trip, meditation would help to bring it back under control
- acollins1331 7y agoThere is a reason the many eastern religions that were the inspiration for a lot of new age ideas forbid drugs and alcohol. While you can have drug induced trances similar to meditation, in Zen they call it "losing your self", the entire point is to be able to develop that skill and point of view without a chemical aid. Not only is it a problem by being used as a crutch as you describe, but there's no guarantee it's experience is similar enough to naturally losing your self to be useful in the same ways. Cool study though
- omarchowdhury 7y agoDefinitely. Psychedelics are useful in showing us the possibilities of the mind, especially for those of us who might have had a restricted outlook on what mind is capable of due to a secular worldview. But once we open that door, the correct way to open the door again and enter is with the right keys. Psychedelics are sort of a battering ram in this context. To quote Alan Watts on psychedelics, "once you get the message hang up the phone," to which I add: hang up the phone or risk getting strangled by the cord.
- benevol 7y agoAbsolutely agree with the above. I would suggest psilocybin and LSD mainly for punctual experiences. They can make you understand what lies "behind the veil". Once you know that, once you have lived that, your life can take a huge turn. One of the best case outcomes is that you no longer have to believe or hope that life is way more profound than society wants us to believe, but you know it (intuitively, that is, not intellectually speaking, of course).
- jonfw 7y ago> There is a reason the many eastern religions that were the inspiration for a lot of new age ideas forbid drugs and alcohol. I'm sure they had reasons. We do studies like this to determine whether or not those reasons are any good. I've seen a lot of evidence that suggests that mediation can have lots of benefits, and I've seen evidence that suggests that psychedellics can have benefits in certain use cases as well. It's easy on a personal level to dismiss results of a study because of dogma, but it doesn't translate into an effective argument.
- partingshots 7y agoWhat about people taking antidepressants wanting to meditate? Should they go off their medication in order to do so?
- bdamm 7y agoWhile I am just about to start reading the article, I would expect a difference between microdosing (antidepressant use of psilocybin, certainly consistent with how most antidepressants are used) and a trip or macrodose of psilocybin.
- omarchowdhury 7y agoI don't think so, but this question is for one's doctors and spiritual directors (if one is on that path). With that being said, antidepressants are nowhere near as dramatic in immediate change of perception as psychedelics are.
- im3w1l 7y agoAlcohol and psychedelics have been around for a long time. Religious practice over the millennia has incorporated experience (not as good as careful study but better than nothing) of their use. Antidepressants are too new to get a good answer out of religion.
- benevol 7y agoI would say, try if it works for you. Everybody's case is really different, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. In my case, I had been trying meds for years (pretty much all brands). Suddenly, I had an intuition that there must be other ways. I researched the web during days and days. Result: I reduced the meds over around 10-14 day period down to zero, after I had gotten into daily mindfulness meditation for a couple of weeks (started with 30min, then 1 hour as an advanced practitioner). As soon as got to 0mg, I had the best couple of hours of my life thanks to my 1st trip with LSD (well researched, well prepared, did it outside in nature, playlist carefully selected). It completely ripped me out of my depression, felt 100% connected to the entire universe, felt immense beauty, love, light, peace. Even during 2-3 days after the experience, I was still deeply in love with simple trees, plants, flowers, where everything had been grey and without any interest during years, before. The anti-anxiety effect lasted a couple of months. This was a life-changing event. The best moment of my life. As always, your mileage may vary.
- vanderZwan 7y ago> Combining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. Or it may aid in processing traumas that were blockades to meditation, with a net result of it being easier to do meditation practice afterwards even without psychedelics. It's all speculation until further research is done into how all this works exactly, no? But FWIW, this research seems to suggest one does not need to keep using psilocybin to have its long-lasting beneficial effects: > Compared with placebo, psilocybin enhanced post-intervention mindfulness and produced larger positive changes in psychosocial functioning at a 4-month follow-up, which were corroborated by external ratings, and associated with magnitude of acute self-dissolution experience
- omarchowdhury 7y ago> Or it may aid in processing traumas that were blockades to meditation, Or it may aid in giving one even more trauma. The outcome differs from person to person, I'm only offering my anecdotes based on my experience and people I know who dabble in psychedelics and meditation. The risk can be distilled to the simple idea of a crutch. Of course, not everyone will take it as a crutch. > But FWIW, this research seems to suggest one does not need to keep using psilocybin to have its long-lasting beneficial effects: And I relate this risk precisely because, in my opinion, most or many people will not deploy the same discipline in using psychedelics as conducted in the study or even use the psychedelics for the same purposes as the study. Once faced with the boredom of the non-psychedelic state of mind, people get agitated. But it's precisely facing this boredom and this agitation which will help them grow -- boredom and agitation are as much apart of reality and the human experience as is excitement and ecstasy.
- vanderZwan 7y agoAre you sure you're not confusing people abusing party drugs with people meditating while under psychedelics?
- omarchowdhury 7y ago
- schaefer 7y agoOmarchowdhury, can you provide any kind of citation for this assertion? or is this just your assumption?
- proofofanalysis 7y agoDo you have any citations to the contrary? That what he is describing is indeed not a risk at all?
- crispinb 7y ago> opens the very real risk Exploring the risks and benefits of practices is the very point of subjecting them to scientific studies. 'Religious' Buddhists may quite understandably take their traditions and texts to have settled the issue. But that's not the case for others interested in the possibilities of psychotechnologies (old and new alike) for human development.
- najarvg 7y agoI would strongly hope that studies combining meditation and psychedelics will be targeted as explorations of specific interventions for clinically diagnosed conditions and not as lifestyle practices. Otherwise all the cautions you mention are very valid.
- i_haz_rabies 7y agoI meditate daily, sometimes sober and sometimes after doing a j... both are valuable, the experiences are 90% the same, the remaining 10% is an interesting object of observation in and of itself. I've meditated on shrooms too. There's value in observing how drugs change your conscious experience, and I've found that value carries over into sober meditation.
- shadykiller 7y agoWhat's j... ?
- Scarblac 7y agoJoint, I assume.
- TrainedMonkey 7y ago> Compared with placebo, psilocybin enhanced post-intervention mindfulness and produced larger positive changes in psychosocial functioning at a 4-month follow-up, which were corroborated by external ratings, and associated with magnitude of acute self-dissolution experience. It seems there was a measurable positive outcome after 4 months. It gets the desired result of enhancing human experience, so does it really matter whether there was chemical assistance? At this point it is just a drug that enhances mediation.
- lapink 7y agoEverything is impermanent. Through your practice, develop perfect equanimity. Anichoooaaaa
- chachachoney 7y ago>> Combining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. That sounds a bit alarmist and is not really a risk if one applies reasonable, responsible ratios to the respective practices.
- rabidrat 7y agoI know more people who are experimenting with microdosing LSD than who have a daily meditation practice.
- throw1234651234 7y agoNot surprising. There are no proven benefits to meditation. The prefrontal cortex activity touted by Kelly McGonigal is achieved through any other focused activity, like playing video games.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago> Combining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. When not taking psychedelics and meditating one will attempt to re-create or grasp after the pleasant sensations and thoughts previously experienced, which severs one from looking into the present moment as it is. Sounds like something you _want_ to believe is true, but I'm not sure that it is. Is there even anecdotal evidence that this is a risk?
- omarchowdhury 7y agoWhat did I relate if not an anecdote? Take a look at shroomery.org for a large group of people's attitude towards psychedelics and meditation, larger than n=39.
- oarabbus_ 7y agoThere's plenty more who have found benefits from meditation and psychedelics.
- omarchowdhury 7y agoThat's not being disputed. I'm one of those people. It's not an endeavor to take on willy nilly, hence pointing out risks.
- jaffau 7y ago>> I'm one of those people. Sorry brother, I had you all wrong. Meditation is often too broad and connotatively laden a term to have immediately productive cross discipline discussions about techniques and outcomes. We'd all benefit from an accessible but revised vocabulary for these matters.
- jaffau 7y agoSo you're saying that one of the oldest and most popular message boards for psilocybin enthusiasts is frequented by tens of people who have different ideas about proportionate combinations of psychadelics and mental exercises than conventional buddhists?
- nine_k 7y agoI don't see why a psychedelic drug can be seen as giving a pleasant experience. It gives an interesting experience which may be enjoyable or horrible, or anything in between, depending on who and when takes it. Reports of bad trips are widespread. Most native tribes who used psychedelics had rituals of "mental cleansing" of sorts to lower the chance of a bad trip. Of course if you only learned "meditation" under a drug, you may just not know how to meditate normally. But this is not the case in this study, afaict.
- tasty_freeze 7y ago> I don't see why a psychedelic drug can be seen as giving a pleasant experience. and > It gives an ... experience which may be enjoyable or horrible Doesn't the second claim answer the first? You just said a trip can be enjoyable, at least some of the time. To get into specifics, I've done LSD a few times, but never a big dose. Sometimes I've had manageable anxiety on the come-up, and often I've experienced an amazing appreciation of music that made the come-up anxiety a small price to pay. And by "amazing" I mean the difference between looking at an ice cream cone and eating the ice cream cone.
- nine_k 7y agoMy point is that a trip can be difficult and unpleasant as much as it could be nice and entertaining. Psylocibin is not like heroin, cocaine, MDMA, or marijuana, it does not elevate your mood and make you feel better, as far as I know.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago>Combining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. That parallels the story of Ram Dass, Robert Anton Wilson, and many other figureheads from the 60s. Many of them would trip over and over again to try to figure out how to stay in that place. Then many of them realized meditation can bring them to that place, and once they realized that they stopped tripping. Tripping is an advertisement to meditate, not the other way around.
- damirkotoric 7y ago> Tripping is an advertisement to meditate, not the other way around. This really distills the message down to its essence. Though worth pointing out that this advertisement doesn't have to be seen as spam. Rather it can be just the right channel at the right moment for some people.
- monomyth 7y agoPsychedelics are clearly "doors of perception" as Huxley noted. I think it's up to an individual to decide on personal course of action and need for such doors to be opened with or without external tools.
- greggman2 7y agoSam Harris's most recent podcast (with Richard Dawkins) had the opposite take. He basically said it was psychedelics that let him experience this alternate state of mind and that eventually led him to pursue meditation. Meditation gets him to the same (or similar) place now but if he hadn't used the psychedelics to get that first experience he feels there's a strong chance he'd never have gotten there in the first place.
- blotter_paper 7y agoFrom my own personal experience, meditating under the influence of entheogens has seemed to help me achieve qualitatively similar states in subsequent sober meditation sessions. YMMV.
- monktastic1 7y ago"Ordinary mind" (Tib: thamal gyi shepa) is a technical yogic term from Mahamudra (which I'm sure you realize, but others won't). And it turns out that maintaining this ordinary mind during a psychedelic trip can indeed enhance the practice. It is also very easy to fool oneself if one has not yet authentically recognized the natural state.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- swayvil 7y agoOr we could just experiment and see what we see.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- carapace 7y agoIn re: drugs in general and psychedelics in particular: > "Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical — the weather, the room's atmosphere; social — feelings of persons present towards one another; and cultural — prevailing views as to what is real. It is for this reason that manuals or guide-books are necessary. Their purpose is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded consciousness, to serve as road maps for new interior territories which modern science has made accessible." > — Timothy Leary, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting - - - - In re: drugs and meditation. It's great that these folks didn't get thrown in jail but their approach is almost criminally ignorant. The epistemology or metaphysics informing the experiment is so... i don't know, 18th century? Did we learn nothing from the 60's? Speaking with experience, don't mix meditation and drugs. I did it, and it didn't completely not-work for me, but from my POV, it's irresponsible. (With the caveat that, for a very very small number of people (like, literally one in a million or fewer), a little experience with drug trips can be educational. But the odds are you're not one of them.) - - - - In re: meditation, it really depends on what you're going for. If you just want to feel better, then yeah, a beer and/or a joint or a lil shroom tea is fine with one's navel-gazing. Simple muscular relaxation is about 90% of the profundity most folk experience with meditation. (Fun fact, what you think of as your personality is encoded (among other places) in the chronic tension patterns in your facial muscles.) If your goal is Enlightenment then drugs are a total blind alley. - - - - I forgot to mention, if you want to experience "alterations of self-consciousness in association with feelings of bliss, unity, and insightfulness" without any drugs, training, or meditation use the Core Transformation Process ( https://www.coretransformation.org/ https://www.coretransformation.org/ ), a simple, reliable algorithm.
- mistermann 7y ago> It's great that these folks didn't get thrown in jail but their approach is almost criminally ignorant. The epistemology or metaphysics informing the experiment is so... i don't know, 18th century? Did we learn nothing from the 60's? This seems like a reasonable criticism. > I did it, and it didn't completely not-work for me, but from my POV, it's irresponsible. Also fair. > With the caveat that, for a very very small number of people (like, literally one in a million or fewer), a little experience with drug trips can be educational. But the odds are you're not one of them. Unless I'm misunderstanding, are you saying only one in a million or fewer can experience an educational effect (or, any benefits/insights whatsoever) from drugs? If so, is this based on studies of some kind? > Simple muscular relaxation is about 90% of the profundity most folk experience with meditation. Same question.
- kleer001 7y ago"However, neither their possible synergistic effects, nor related state and trait predictors have been experimentally studied." Well, you know, there was the Mash Chapel Experiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment Technically it was about religious experience, not mediation. But my BS detectors go off pretty strong when I hear "No one's ever done this before." instead of "Here's some things done in the past that are like what we're doing, but here's how we're different."
- qwerty456127 7y agoAlthough I'm pro-psychedelic I can warn against going this way as hallucinogens can screw the whole point by distracting you from what you are to find. What I can recommend (to whoever can do this legally) is to try doing a Buddhist meditation while on weed + amphetamine. Amphetamine can augment concentration and weed can intensify the experience. Chances are you will get it (satori or whatever you call it) and won't loose it ever. It can't be unseen and you only loose it temporarily every time you loose mindful concentration.
- aedron 7y agoMeditating on speed, there's a new one.
- x220 7y agoI don't think you should recommend that people just try amphetamine or cannabis, much less in tandem. There are serious side effects especially if you have an existing or latent mental illness. Cannabis can induce a psychotic episode in a nontrivial proportion of the population. Amphetamine can, among other things, induce mania in someone who has bipolar disorder. It's fine if you know the risks and want to do it anyways, but Jesus Christ, I don't think you should tell people to use speed because "it helps them concentrate".
- np_tedious 7y agoHe's not offering official medical advice. He is sharing his anecdotal experience. I personally have zero interest in speed (meditating or otherwise), but I still enjoyed reading the comment.
- x220 7y agoHe is offering medical advice. He's telling people to use drugs. You can't get more medical than that. Again, it's fine to tell people to use a drug as long as you tell them the risks. It would be irresponsible for me to tell people to try fentanyl because "it's a lot of fun" without mentioning the serious risks.
- 7y ago
- Applethief 7y agoMeditation/Yoga requires a clear mind. No drugs, no alcohol. It's very simple.
- mackrevinack 7y agoits not that simple though. chances are you probably have some sort of sugar in your diet. sugar is a drug/stimulant, just like coffee too
- LocalH 7y agoPsychedelics have helped clear my mind, and many other people's minds.
- swayvil 7y agoI tried a combination of Vipassana and Psilocybin a couple of times. The awareness that comes with Vipassana gives you greater awareness of (and control over) the Psylocybin effect. Like Psilocybin is a motorcycle and Vipassana makes you into a pro rider. It a whole other level. Like, before you were doing donuts in your backyard, but now you can drive on the highway and visit France.
- mettamage 7y agoLol, when I took psilocybin (Amsterdam, truffles, one dose, legal), I couldn't even follow any instruction let alone meditate. Up to a point, I even lost my language abilities.
- swayvil 7y agoI didn't meditate while on psilocybin, I meditated before. The "meditation effect" lingers, tapering off over hours, days etc.
- azhu 7y agoyep, the better your metacognition the more you can actively engage with a drug.