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Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients
- xyzal 6y agoAnecdote: I have suffered from anxiety since I can remember. I had the opportunity to take psilocybe a few times (always took about quarter of a dose than my trip-mates, out of fear of a bad trip, and most of the times had just subtle perceptual distortions), and the following days/weeks always seemed unusually serene.
- tsukurimashou 6y agoI think psychedelics in general are great if you have anxiety / depression. I experienced the same thing with LSD as you, it really helps to change perspective and refocus on important things in your life
- agumonkey 6y agoWas the new onsight strong and long term ? I'm often curious how a rewiring can last over time.
- tsukurimashou 6y agoWell I think for some people it can last forever, if the trip was meaningful enough. The biggest thing for me was ego dissolution, and I think I'll keep that in mind for the rest of my life.
- throwYAWZA123 6y agoOf similar background, I've expected to feel something but honestly felt nothing. Maybe a little hot on the cheeks. Reading about it more afterwards, seems regular taking of SSRIs may prevent the effects of shrooms. Did you take SSRIs or similar medicine at the time? Did you feel the same effect in the first time?
- xyzal 6y agoI was AD free at the time.
- quickthrowman 6y agoPsilocybin works if you take SSRI/SNRIs, LSD too. MDMA does not, and taking it while on an SSRI can cause serotonin syndrome.
- mettamage 6y agoYour dosage cannot be emphasized enough (!). First time I took it, half a dose, I felt like a 12 year old child. It was a lot of fun. Second time I took it, a full dose, I had a bad trip. But I was with my girlfriend, so it was never too bad. I also learned that I trust her completely emotionally. I relied on her a lot. Third time I took it with a very close friend (15+ years of knowing, inspired each other to study psychology), a full dose again (I thought it would be fine by now), my trip was so bad that I had strong feelings of ending it all. Luckily enough my intelligence was waning fast as well, so I locked myself in a room. 10 minutes later I didn't know what was what, but I cried for 30 minutes and I didn't know why I cried. When I got out of the trip it did spur a soul search questioning myself, looking inward more deeply and that was beneficial but I was flying a bit too close to the sun for it to be worth it. I should've gotten a trip sitter. I was naive at the time.
- francescopnpn 6y agodifferent people have different tolerances. clearly your sweet spot was "half a dose" dude.
- tsukurimashou 6y agoI think people underestimate the value of bad trips. Sure it can be hell and very unpleasant / traumatizing. But for me it really helped me realize all the stress and anxiety that was just sitting there for the past ~20 years. It had been there for so long that it was my "normal" and couldn't even see it.
- mettamage 6y agoWhile that's true for me as well, I still think the 3rd time was too dangerous. It'd have been safe enough with a trip sitter.
- blkknightarms 6y agoWhich psychedelics (shrooms, acid, peyote, salvia, ketamine, ayahuasca) would be best for endogenous, treatment-resistant depression? If there are any with a proven effect, do they have to be taken periodically?
- 3np 6y agoKetamine is not generally considered a psychedelic. It's a disassociative. I don't think I've ever seen a study comparing this in the way you describe, but from piecing together other papers I recall seeing I would say probably psiloc(yb)in, possibly DMT ("ayahuasca"), with LSD and mescaline (peyote/san pedro) being qualitatively similar. All of these are primarily serotonergic. I'd be surprised if Salvia does jack shit in that domain, regardless of how trippy the experience can be. It acts very differently.
- lostgame 6y ago>> Ketamine is not generally considered a psychedelic. It's a disassociative. Yeah, I don't think people who say that have done a high enough dosage. :P
- 3np 6y agoIt can absolutely induce psychedelic experiences - in medical literature it's not generally (though this is not entirely consistent) classified as a psychedelic.
- drooogs 6y agokinda splitting hairs, but these words do have specific meanings. psychedelics and dissociatives of hallucinogens, a broader category of drugs. you definitely see weird stuff if you take enough ketamine, but the hallucinations have a very different character. subjectively, I find psychedelics to have more of an "organic" feel and dissociatives to have a more "synthetic" feel, although I imagine others might describe it differently.
- blkknightarms 6y ago
- VectorLock 6y agoI'm glad we have erowid for recording people's tripping experiences.
- vansul 6y agoErowid is absolutely one of my favourite places on the web
- peteretep 6y agoright but also https://twitter.com/erowidrecruiter https://twitter.com/erowidrecruiter
- samizdis 6y agoAnd, of course, we have the excellent first-hand accounts of Alexander and Ann Shulgin in PiHKAL; which covers many psychedelic drugs and notes their effects at varying dosages. (It also covers synthesis.) Widipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL Electronic copies of the book used to be widely available online, but I can't vouch for any links that have turned up in a quick search a few minutes ago. Hard copies are still available, and are probably more complete and/or safer.
- luftbb 6y agoThis story is at least a decade old at this point - psychedelics are good when used topically
- antihero 6y agoPsychedelics are good generally
- luftbb 6y agoYes I'd agree with that - although I've seen people take a turn on them but a rare occurrence and these people had underlying mental issues. What I mean by my comment is media keeps repeating the same research about the benefis of psychedelics - it's beyond old news at this stage and I'm being generous with my ten year timespan it's closer to 15.
- rich_sasha 6y agoI don't understand the controversy. We know full well the natural world is full of substances with significant impact on our bodies. Many such substances can even on average be harmful, but when used correctly, they are beneficial. Opioids come to mind first and foremost. It's not controversial to give e.g. serious accident victims a shot of morphine. Why are investigations into medicinal use of shrooms or marijuana controversial? Is it the picture of a sick old lady smokin' a massive spliff?
- colechristensen 6y agoSome of it is basically racist propaganda that entered the public consciousness and became "true". Hallucinogens though... aren't just drugs that change something a little. They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. In the 60s-ish era there were people that wanted to change the world with the drugs with plans to dose populations and leaders to effect major changes. They are very powerful things and with them minds can be rewritten... any sufficiently powerful tool is dangerous. Some early signals and bad actors (basically parts the drug culture that separated from the early scientists studying the drugs) scared the shit out of many in the established society and the propaganda machine turned on and turned them and drugs in general into an evil. Sort of a knee-jerk stupid reaction that had some basis in real issues but was distorted and exaggerated by people who didn't know much of anything and just got on the bandwagon. (remind you of any other societal issues?)
- coldtea 6y ago>They can give people profound religious experiences. Some people become an unsettling kind of prophet for a religion of the drug. Like 0.01%? For every McKenna, Timophy Leary, etc, there were millions doing LSD in the 60s. And the "prophets" were mostly a fashion of the era too. When that died, in the 80s, and 90s and so on, you still had LSD, and shrooms, and Ecstasy, and others, but no "prophets".
- colechristensen 6y ago
- pedro1976 6y agoI want to reccommend a pretty inspiring JRE podcast with mycologist Paul Stamets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ
- jaynetics 6y agoJRE = "Joe Rogan Experience" (for those non-americans who can only come up with "Java Runtime Environment" like me)
- prepend 6y agoI like how the tag line for this newspaper is “Help pay for our reporting.” And it’s positioned kind of like the “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”
- joeberon 6y agoI also highly recommend mindfulness meditation to reduce fear of death and improve quality of life
- Broken_Hippo 6y agoFor at most, 11/12 people. For some folks, it makes anxiety or depression worse than when they started. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and-meditation-can-worsen-depression-and-anxiety/#:~:text=About%20one%20in%2012%20people,systematic%20review%20of%20the%20evidence https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251840-mindfulness-and....
- shekharshan 6y agoI would recommend unvarnished Buddhism, not mindfulness in a pill that is being taught by these crazy apps. Buddhism teaches mindfulness in the context of wisdom and morality, not just mindfulness. Moreover the word itself is a horrible translation of the Pali word “Sati” which means “remembering to be aware of the state of your mind”. The key is “remembering to be aware”, not just “awareness”.
- rytill 6y agoWhy is that difference in phrase key?
- shekharshan 6y agoYou can become aware on your own by accident. In fact a lot of us do that. Remembering to be aware means there is a muscle memory that does automatic mental state check, there is an intention behind this state check.
- unnamed10 6y agoIf I wanted to learn more about this unvarnished Buddhism, where would I start? Do you have any resources that I could check?
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- nazgulnarsil 6y agoTo the rest of the list of charges we can add: boomers screwed over generations of trauma victims because they couldn't handle their shit.
- GordonS 6y agoStory time. I recall one afternoon my friend and I picked and took some mushrooms (they grow in abundance at a certain time of year where I live), when I was perhaps 15 years old. We didn't take a huge quantity, but enough for a mild, pleasant experience. That same evening I realised that I had to write an essay for school - it wasn't like me, but I'd completely forgotten about it, and now had a single evening to write a whole essay... bah, how could I possibly do that?! I sat down, and... it just flowed. Words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, characters, just sprang to life on the page - and it was good, really good! My mind felt amazing - like my consciousness had been expanded. I'd never felt such pure imagination and joy of knowledge before. By the end of the evening I had unquestionably the best essay I'd ever written, and about twice the target length. A week or so later when I got the results, it was a B, and I was kind of shocked - it was a masterpiece, dammit, and normally I pretty much got straight A's in English regardless! The teacher called me back after class - he told me what I submitted was way better than A+ work, more what would be expected at university level, or by a published author. He also asked who wrote it, because "it obviously wasn't you" - he didn't believe my insistence that I'd written it. He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again". Of course, people can have great ideas and do great work without hallucinogenic drugs - that should really go without saying. But the results with such drugs can be utterly incredible - also keep in mind the effect is not only while using the drug, but afterwards too. The first time I k-holed on ketamine (many years later), it felt like I somehow understood the universe itself, and my mind felt incredible for 2-3 weeks afterwards. A cautionary tale though. Later as a 15/16 year old again, we took an insane amount of mushrooms one night after something terrible had happened. Hundreds of them. I kept finding myself in the corner of the same room, staring at a troll (an hallucination). It seemed like it had happened a hundred times, and was pretty frightening. It was like being trapped in a never-ending nightmare. I later spent several hours shivering uncontrollably on a bed. It was a long time ago, but I guess the whole thing lasted at least 12 hours. I've never touched mushrooms or any other hallucinogen since, and I doubt I ever will, even if as an adult I wouldn't be as irresponsible as I was as a kid.
- mettamage 6y agoHaha, that's an awesome story. To write something so off the scale. Like, you were an A-student! And you wrote something that was so unbelievably good, your teacher didn't believe it. That is pure gold. So I have to ask. Do you still have that essay? And can I (email in profile), or we (HN), read it? I get it if you don't want to. Just asking if you're open to it :) I think your story isn't properly finished ;-)
- paufernandez 6y agoWith all these articles I wonder about survivorship bias: where are the ones about people which had a bad experience with psilocybin?
- momirlan 6y agoWhen you are dying of cancer, a bad trip is a small inconvenience. A therapist will make the chance of that very small anyway.
- cranekam 6y agoYep. If psychedelics were to be given to terminally ill patients it's fair to assume it'd be under the guidance of someone who knows how to help things go well and in a comfortable environment. It probably wouldn't involve said person dropping a full dose and hitting a concert only to find the rest of the crowd are ogres and the music is stabbing them.
- nabla9 6y agoRichard Feynman did LSD after getting cancer diagnosis. Jaron Lanier was his trip sitter.
- golemotron 6y agoIf Jaron is your trip sitter, you don't even need the LSD.
- yetanothermonk 6y agoWow. From Jaron's 2017 book?
- barrenko 6y agoFor me it's summed up in one of the addict stories that I read somewhere, where the guy said the hallucinogenic "spirits" basically told him to get off hard drugs or they would kill him. He's been sober since.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoAlong these lines, psilocybin has shown promise in the treatment of alcoholism: https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/202630/addiction-medicine/psilocybin-promising-alcohol-use-disorder https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/202630/addiction-m...
- remir 6y agoOne of my past colleague smoked pot everyday and one night was franticly searching for his "dose" and he was getting extremely frustrated because he couldn't find it. He told me that it got to a point where he got mad and literally blacked out! He found himself in a black void which he described as very disturbing and hellish because all he could feel was dread and the sound of screams. He never touched any substances after that and was shook up when he told me that story.
- say_it_as_it_is 6y agoIf you haven't read Michael Pollan's book, yet: https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/0735224153 https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transc...
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoTo be plain, this sort of clear benefit and experience is what the DEA fights against. Because it is a federal law enforcement agency and not a medical entity, it's focus isn't on serving Americans but preserving the anointed order of the state. While obvious, the ongoing harm done by ascribing medical responsibilities to an LEO doesn't capture the interest of elected officials. Unless the electorate forces their interest, that won't ever change.
- thehealthycoder 6y agoIf anyone's looking for a good book on psychedelics, How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan made me think completely differently on them (the book isn't about changing your mind on psychedelics fyi)
- nosmokewhereiam 6y agoI'm going to say something against micro-dosing, but I'm not against it in any way. But for those trying to use this in a medicinal or therapeutic way, you'll want a full dose. Mushrooms would be 2-3 grams, LSD would be 200 mics, etc. THese are generic recommendations depending on variety or process method. Point is, you need a higher dose to be more thorough in making breakthroughs.
- ficklepickle 6y agoThe sound track for the original Johns Hopkins trial is supposed to be really good. I met someone tangentially related to the project. "Chet", if you are reading this, I hope you are well.
- krrrh 6y agoSomeone put it together on Spotify, and I converted it to Apple Music. You can find links to both here: https://www.notion.so/quant/Johns-Hopkins-Playlist-for-Psilocybin-on-Apple-Music-2ab2b7bbca7d4a1aa8ec51ca6c4efe76 https://www.notion.so/quant/Johns-Hopkins-Playlist-for-Psilo... It’s good, and there are a lot of other interesting trip playlists on Spotify too.
- throwawayamzn1 6y agoMagic spirit medicine of nature.. heals the heart. No surprise these patients lives are getting changed. Highly recommend those adventurous to try it, very rare that someone doesn’t have some trauma to heal from.
- chenpengcheng 6y agodo they avoid death?