3 ms·
Interesting story, but as always it’s important to consider the source. These results shouldn’t be interpreted as typical or average. 5-MeO-DMT isn’t extraordin
by PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Interesting story, but as always it’s important to consider the source. These results shouldn’t be interpreted as typical or average. 5-MeO-DMT isn’t extraordinarily rare or hard to obtain, but stories of people turning their entire lives and psychology around for the better after a single dose aren’t common.
Even the subject recommends against self experimentation, owing much of his outcome to the overall experience and ritual itself. He suggests he was skeptical, but skeptics don’t get on an airplane and travel to a destination to consume psychedelics under the guise of self-healing. The placebo effect plays a strong role in many of these outcomes, with the jarring experience of taking a psychedelic and having reality dissolve act as a sort of super-place that signals that whatever experience was had was noteworthy in a supernatural way.
That sort of super-placebo effect doesn’t only amplify positive thoughts, though. Any psychedelic guide will emphasize “set and setting” as important because it’s well-known that a negative set and setting can trigger a harmful trip which can exacerbate pre-existing anxieties and negative ideas rather than making them disappear as this single anecdote would suggest. More realistically, “set and setting” had become a code phrase for post-rationalizing bad trips as being the fault of the user, not the drug, as relatively little guidance is provided about what constitutes proper set and setting. Instead, negative trips are hand-waved away as problems with “set and setting” as a way to vindicate the drug itself.
In more typical real-world experiences, life changing results like this aren’t typical. Some users report a sort of afterglow effect, but it often fades in a matter of days or weeks. This leaves some of those users chasing additional doses or wondering what they’ve done wrong. On the other end of the spectrum, psychedelic experiences can and do trigger long lasting negative affect, or even unmask latent mental illness. Again, it’s not uncommon for these to be hand-waved away as pre-existing underlying conditions or improper set and setting, but it’s important to know that negative outcomes or exacerbations of mental illness are a very real possibility.
Psychedelics are an interesting research topic, but we need to be honest and realistic that these aren’t hidden miracle cures that will wipe away anxiety and change everyone’s lives for the better after just one dose.
- pmoriarty 5y ago> stories of people turning their entire lives and psychology around for the better after a single dose aren’t common This story itself is not about someone turning his entire life around after a single session. As the author writes: "Ironically, my first visit to the clinic didn't really address my social anxiety directly, as there was a lot more fundamental stuff that I had to work through. I've been back twice now..."
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoExactly. As I said above, a lot of these psychedelic afterglows are short-lived, leading to an urge to redose to recapture the experience.
- loves_mangoes 5y agoUrge to redose is maybe laying it on a bit thick. Drugs feel good, obviously, but psychedelics aren't particulraly adictive to most people. It's usually pretty draining, not something most people would want to do every day. The afterglows are pretty long for me! Love
- sterlind 5y agoI've had the opposite. Horrendously scary experiences brought on by panic attacks, magnified by the drug and stretched out to subjective days by time dilation. My ego was run through the thresher and dismembered. Having such a negative experience was probably better though. I rebuilt my ego after a few months and permanently (10+ years now) fixed deep problems in my psyche. But it scared the bejeesus out of me and I have no desire to go through that ever again.
- loves_mangoes 5y agoI'm really sorry you went through that, for what it's worth <3 Stay safe.
- pmoriarty 5y agoBad trips often uncover a lot of negative unconscious material that the tripper does not want to deal with in their ordinary waking consciousness. Psychedelics can sometimes just kind of "put your nose in it" whether you like it or not and make you face these things. Some people can't handle it.. especially if they're not expecting it, have not prepared, and have no professional support to help them to work through and integrate the experience. It can be terrifying, but my own bad trips (which happened decades ago) have taught me much more than my good trips, which were just fun. Not that I'd want to have a bad trip or wish one on anyone else, but they can be used constructively and be ultimately helpful if one tries to learn from them instead of just push them away. Surrender to whatever happens during the trip and turning towards the fear has also been shown to lead to a positive outcome as one experiences "ego-death" and then rebirth, which is why this approach is encouraged in professional psychedelic therapy. I've read some psychedelic therapists telling their patients that if they feel like they're dying to just die.. and that it'll be ok.