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Have you been depressed? I can tell from experience that a depressed mind is quite active. In a bad way - constantly hurting itself with dark thoughts and hence

• throwawayboise 5y ago
  To me the point being made is that there will never be a "cure in a pill" for many things, including depression. Medication may help, but really getting past it will also take active effort. If you're overweight, you can't get lean and fit by taking a pill (much as many would like it to be true). You will have to make some effort by eating less (actively resisting feelings of hunger) and getting more physically active.
• dangom 5y ago
  Active is a bad word to describe what I meant. I don't mean to say that a depressed mind is not thinking, just that it may not be able to get itself out of the place it is in without "active" effort (as in therapy - self-therapy or mediated by others). The conundrum is that putting in that effort may not possible because all energy is already spent - as you pointed out. My suggestion is that psychedelics opens space for these thoughts to be actively dealt with in a productive way. There is also mounting evidence that depression is a symptom and not a single disease, and the symptom may be originating from multiple causes. This view is supported by the extreme between-subject variability seen in imaging studies [1]. That being the case, maybe not all causes would require an "active" approach, just as maybe not all will respond to psychedelics. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-00789-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-00789-3