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Combining psychedelics with meditation opens the very real risk of conditioning one's meditation practice to require psychedelics to have any efficacy. When not

• 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 ago
    Then for you, that's ordinary.
• ptah 7y ago
  i agree, psychedelics can be used as an initiation experience before the real work of meditation begins
• jammygit 7y ago
  Depends 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 ago
  There 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 ago
    Definitely. 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 ago
    Absolutely 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.
  • chachachoney 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. That's taking a very narrow point of view on the subject. While modern, mainstream, orthodox eastern religions forbid drugs and alcohol the traditions that inform them used a wide array of tools to reveal and tune the instruments of perception. A man with a broken leg benefits from a crutch until the bone heals.
  • 7y ago
• partingshots 7y ago
  What about people taking antidepressants wanting to meditate? Should they go off their medication in order to do so?
  • bdamm 7y ago
    While 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 ago
    I 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 ago
    Alcohol 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 ago
    I 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 ago
      Are you sure you're not confusing people abusing party drugs with people meditating while under psychedelics?
      • omarchowdhury 7y ago
• schaefer 7y ago
  Omarchowdhury, can you provide any kind of citation for this assertion? or is this just your assumption?
  • proofofanalysis 7y ago
    Do 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 ago
  I 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    What's j... ?
    • Scarblac 7y ago
      Joint, 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 ago
  Everything 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 ago
    I know more people who are experimenting with microdosing LSD than who have a daily meditation practice.
    • throw1234651234 7y ago
      Not 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.
      • cc81 7y ago
        There are no proven benefits to micro dosing LSD either. But it is easier I guess.
        • skyyler 7y ago
          Is the challenge what makes meditation good?
          • rolltiide 7y ago
            The gatekeeping
      • agota 7y ago
        Do you have a source for the claim that playing video games has the same effect on the prefrontal cortex as meditation? Seems extremely unlikely, but I'm curious, so I would appreciate a link.
• 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 ago
    What 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 ago
      There's plenty more who have found benefits from meditation and psychedelics.
      • omarchowdhury 7y ago
        That'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 ago
      So 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 ago
  I 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 ago
      My 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 ago
  Psychedelics 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 ago
  Sam 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 ago
  From 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 ago
  Or we could just experiment and see what we see.