11 ms·

Personal anecdote: 2 years of "research", 2 trips on psilocybe (one month apart), proper set & setting & guide & a lot of talking about it later with a trusted

by myshpa 4y ago

Personal anecdote: 2 years of "research", 2 trips on psilocybe (one month apart), proper set & setting & guide & a lot of talking about it later with a trusted person ... decades-long cripling neurosis/anxiety disorder gone, addictions gone, depression receding, worldview changed, rated as one of the most influential experiences. Depression is (imho) not to be healed with "here, swallow a pill", structural changes to one's life are necessary. Psychedelics can help to show the way, not to solve it.

konfusinomicon 4y ago
I wonder if the same effects can be attained by someone who has used psychedelics recreationionally their entire life, from say 16 onward. is it the external guidance during the experience that really makes the difference? or is a life of experiences responsible for one not having anxiety or depression on those levels
- Ayesh 4y ago
  Psychedelics, LSD in particular, see their major use being a party drug. Coming from a personal experience, many people decide the "trip" they want to go on way before the trip starts. I am pretty sure there are non-zero amount of people who regularly take psychedelics, but have never been on that kind of "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy EDM, a party, perhaps a hike, paint something, watch a movie, play some sports outside, play video games, etc.
  - recyclelater 4y ago
    Edit: I wanted to amend this to say I don’t think people should use psychedelics regularly, which I think my original comment below might imply. Lots of downsides to regular use, occasional (every couple years) seems to have little risk and some benefits in my experience. Original text below is unedited. I dunno, if you regularly use lsd or mushrooms, you probably have had a “wow that was more than I wanted” experience, that means you had complete ego loss, had the veil of reality completely pulled back so you could “see” the arbitrariness of society and human interactions. Your embarrassing actions you have been deluding yourself about come crashing down around you. You sober up and you rationalize some of it away but there’s a big nagging thing in the back of your mind screaming “maybe you should stop doing ____”. At least this has happened to me on a couple of occasions and has led to me apologizing to people, changing my default behaviors, etc. I am not a super introspective person so the kick in the head that psychedelics occasionally provide has allowed for some personality changes that were necessary and good. As an adult I now recognize that these experiences could be beneficial as therapy with the right person to guide you through it, that most people probably don’t get the full benefit these occasional experiences provide by themselves. I didn’t think this while young and just partying (though did have a bit of woo woo collective consciousness mind expansion mindset). Anything other than the recreation aspects of it were me trying to justify why it was ok, and getting high a lot is generally not ok. I actually sobered up for rest of my life after a strong mushroom trip left me thinking I was wasting my life and going down the wrong path. In short, there’s meat here, but of course with all these things there will be people riding a fad and making a buck, but bad usually tags along with the good in some amount.
  - MauranKilom 4y ago
    > "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy [stuff] Those are also not mutually exclusive, to be clear. Come for the dance, stay for the self-insight.
- mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
  It's difficult to explain if you haven't had that kind of experience yourself, but one way to describe it is that psychedelics (some more so than others) open up a window that allows for change. You are no longer stuck in your old ways of thinking that you took for granted. But the experiences themselves don't change you. You still need to put in the work to make the changes. You can certainly do this without a guide. But if you take these drugs recreationally without such intentions and without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term. A guide will help you to get the most out of the experience (while also helping with trip safety). It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not, it's about how you take them.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    "It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not" "without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term" Sounds a lot like cognitive bias to me. It's ultimately a placebo if you still need to put the work in. Ergo, you could achieve the same results even without taking it. It's attributing personal growth to a drug rather than to your own willpower to do something.
    - bambataa 4y ago
      I’m not sure I agree, because people might put in the hard work without the psychedelic and not experience the benefit. Michael Pollan’s “How to change your mind” talks about psychedelic studies where the more effective, longer lasting changes are seen by the people who had more “mystic” experiences. It’s not just about good intentions, or just taking psychedelics, but seemingly priming your mind to use the psychedelics to (temporarily) change fundamental thought patterns.
    - mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
      By that definition, getting therapy is also a placebo. You could go to therapy "recreationally" without wanting to get better or work on yourself. But that's not going to help you. You still need to put in work. Does that make therapy a placebo?
- nico 4y ago
  Not sure, but I have a friend who has plenty of experience with psychedelics, and he just had his first session of psychedelic therapy with ketamine (done by a medical professional trained to do it). After the session he said it was very different to anything he had done before and that he felt he made a ton of progress. My guess is that the intention that you set before “the trip”, really impacts the experience and hence the results. As well as having a professional guide/sitter that knows how to guide you and create a therapeutic setting.
  - hesdeadjim 4y ago
    Buddy of mine recently did a two session psychedelic ketamine treatment with intensive pre and post-support therapy. The changes in his negative habits and ruminative thoughts were impressive. He had done LSD a few times, but he said the ketamine was a much more “safe” feeling experience. I’ve been considering it myself, despite not being depressed or anxious, just to see what channels of growth it might open up.
    - mmsnberbar66 4y ago
      where can you do these therapies?
      - cypherpunks01 4y ago
        USA directory here: https://www.askp.org/directory/ https://www.askp.org/directory/
- brnt 4y ago
  > is it the external guidance during the experience that really makes the difference? That's what psychiatrists using psycho active drugs say: without proper stage setting and guidance, the experience can be terrifying and traumatic in itself. Remember, not everybody has good trips, especially not people dealing with depression and trauma.
voisin 4y ago
Can you elaborate on your research and how you were able to find the right guide, achieve the proper set & setting?
cainxinth 4y ago
From personal experience, I think one of the reasons psychedelics can help with depression is that when you are severely depressed, it feels permanent, like nothing will ever get better or even meaningfully different. But then you have a psychedelic experience, and for a brief moment, things are very much different. And if the experience is even slightly positive, it reminds you that it’s still possible to feel something good, and that glimmer of hope can chip away at your entrenched fatalism.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I'd agree with this. I've never done psychedelics (at least not the kind that are experimentally used for mental health; I did Molly once but fuck that comedown), but I spent years depressed, anxious, guilty, etc. and then I started using weed. I went a little TOO hard for a while, because it was the first time in years I'd had my body and brain giving me primarily GOOD feelings. Which led to me ending up in therapy and actually addressing my PTSD, because then I knew that feeling shitty wasn't just how I was programmed to be biologically because something was Wrong with me. The 'too hard for a while' is probably why these things should be done under medical supervision. I basically spent 8 months blazed out of my mind.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    I mean mental health is never just one thing; in your case, weed was a gateway drug to therapy (I'm simplifying to try and keep things light). PTSD and C-PTSD are underdiagnosed or ignored a lot, I think, but there are treaments available. One is EMDR [0] that, anecdotally, was very effective in treating my GF's cptsd. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_a...
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      I want to try EMDR but I need to find someone who can adapt it to me since I don't have fine muscle control in my eyes and I used to be blind. (I'm a statistical oddity! YAY!)
immmmmm 4y ago
the second time it cured me from depression, the healing process happened in around 10 minutes where i was taken from the worst to the best. felt like 100's of simultaneous orgasms and was in shock for the next three days. i have read a single take can increase neuronal connectivity by 10% in rodents, which is not surprising after that experience. still feeling great more than a year after. meanwhile my mom gas been on AD for 40 years.
mbesto 4y ago
> Psychedelics can help to show the way, not to solve it. The best way I had it described to me is: Psychedelics are microscopes, not panaceas. A trained psychiatrist is the panacea.
tptacek 4y ago
I'm glad for you, but the researchers involved in this story did an actual RCT with a cohort of patients and measured the effect, and the benefit of psilocybin was shown to be marginal. The study is linked in the first paragraph of the story.
- briffle 4y ago
  I'd probably take that choice compared to the cost and daily dosing of the pharmacy alternative.
- yboris 4y ago
  > The study, a small trial run at Imperial College London I'm puzzled how a small trial run can derail decades of larger-scale evidence?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    The larger-scale evidence is of much lower quality than an RCT. I don't think the study is dispositive, but it's strong evidence, much stronger than a message board axiomatic derivation of why psilocybin should work.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      RCTs are not magic. They are not always strong evidence, and not always any sort of evidence. The details always matter.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        I don't disagree with any of this.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Almost all RCTs involving depression throw a bunch of people diagnosed with "depression", but suffering a variety of conditions, all given that label, in a tank together. The treatment may help a few, harm others, and have no effect on the rest, and the treatment is then labeled "ineffective". RCTs depend for validity absolutely upon precise, accurate diagnosis for validity. Bad diagnostics => meaningless results. RCTs are not magic. They can be as wrong as anything stupidly performed. RCTs around depression are worse than most.
johnfn 4y ago
I'm confused how your first sentence appears to say that you completely solved your depression, addictions, anxiety, neurosis and worldview with two trips, and your second sentence says that depression can't be solved with a pill. These seem to be at odds, unless I'm missing something.
- MauranKilom 4y ago
  "A trip" is more than just a pill - set & setting are just as important. And what it gives you is an alternative perspective on your own life, which you still have to convert into actual change in your mindset/life afterwards.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Even if you take psychedelics it won’t magically fix your problems bc most peoples problems are systemic. The system must change but the psychedelics allow the user to see the value in the change.
barrysteve 4y ago
I'm glad you had a good outcome. It's difficult to relate to your experience from the outside. Most of the time people talk about these experiences, they are vague and difficult to understand. Sometimes in poor cases it can sound like gym-bro science where I should totally pop a supplement because this guy had a good experience on it and trust me bro. I would love to know more specifically about the subjective experience is like, so we can pick out pieces that have a greater meaning to collective understanding. Depression is an umbrella term for one experience caused by many, many different problems. Some chronic medical situations are going to allow your body to be re-depressed after a positive drug experience, so being able to see subjective reports in detail can allow the public to decide if it's worth doing a psychedelic treatment. Not to mention we should probably map this experience out to slowly cut down on the same speculative questions every time drugs come up; about the divine/psychological/medical nature of a drug trip.
- josephg 4y ago
  > Most of the time people talk about these experiences, they are vague and difficult to understand. I’ve taken LSD a few times. When people ask about it I like to say that the experience is exactly like how people describe it, but nothing like what I expected. Trying to “map it out” in complete detail would be like trying to map out sex. I’m not convinced I can fully explain my experience, and even if I did, I bet your experience would be different from mine. Maybe the best description I can give is that your mind stops suppressing a lot of thoughts. When I hear music on LSD my brain turns the music into a whole planet that looks like that music sounds. When I look in the mirror I see myself as a fey creature full of animus and life. The things that my sober self stresses about seem ridiculous - like the fears of a 5 year old. And I still feel trapped by my fears at the same time. It’s a very unique experience. As Sam Harris says, if you take enough LSD it’s impossible to be bored.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > Trying to “map it out” in complete detail would be like trying to map out sex. I’m not convinced I can fully explain my experience, and even if I did, I bet your experience would be different from mine. That's exactly right. I think of it like this: you've spent a lifetime building and entrenching filters around your perceptions and thought patterns to react to them. They persist because in evolutionary terms you being still alive means your behaviour is "adaptive" in a sense, irrespective of how you actually feel. Psychedelics temporarily tear down most of those filters and disrupt those thought patterns, allowing you to perceive things in very novel ways and react to hem very differently. Nobody's thought patterns or filters are going to be the same and so nobody's psychedelic experience will be the same even though many of them will have similarities (we are the same species in the same culture after all).
Maursault 4y ago
> Depression is (imho) not to be healed with "here, swallow a pill", structural changes to one's life are necessary. Clinical depression rarely has anything to do with what you've done or events in the outside world. Psychiatry has settled on treating depression with two strokes, a cocktail which is a chemical antidepressent, and a chemical stabilizer, and they expect you to take these daily and stay on it for the rest of your life. I have no evidence for it, but I assume this is some pharmaceutical company's agenda, to keep you a customer for the rest of your life. While it works, chemicals always have side-effects, and with so much exposure, daily, they are bound to compound, making it more difficult to consume. Therapy alone can cure depression, it just takes a lot of time and effort. I don't think it is possible talk therapy could ever make things worse, but it just doesn't work fast enough. Still, recommended. But I have discovered a way to cure depression relatively quickly in two ways. First, chemically, but without a life sentence. I have discovered a substance that will cure depression overnight, not unlike an aspirin cures a headache. You get headaches, too? How would you feel about being told you need to take a daily medication for the rest of your life to cure it? No, one dose will do. The drug is unregulated, and is available OTC in cough gels. You won't find this in any PDR, but depending on the patient's weight, say for a 160lb. man, 900mg of dextromethorphan will cure depression overnight, and it has been for some time in many clinical studies exploring its potential as a fast acting treatment for treatment-resistant depression. You take the large dose with a pepsid, and go to bed, wake the next day depression free, and its depression-killing effects can last up to a year. It is an old and safe drug, and the lethal overdose is estimated, because it is unknown. Though it is an OTC remedy for cough, dextromethorphan has already been approved for treatment of emotional incontinence, which could be seen as sort of a cousin of depression. The other cure, chemical free, is sunlight. Light in the eyes regulates mood. Not enough light will eventually cause depression. Too much light will cause mania (as we should have suspected from the exploits of Florida Man). Put enough sunlight in your eyes, it will cure your clinical depression. If daylight is not enough, get an artificial light that is an accurate simulator of natural sunlight, which is probably not LED, due to too much blue light, which also damages the eye and slowly blinds you, but you can't go wrong with halogen. Point it at your eyes. You can even close your eyes, light goes right through the eye lids and is still effective at fighting depression.
- 4y ago
hi5eyes 4y ago
Psychs often leave oneself with the motivation to make radical changes to improve themselves implementing those changes over time is the key
ParallelThread 4y ago
Are you in the US? Where can I find information about people who can help me be with the experience safely?
molszanski 4y ago
People confuse simple with easy. How to quit smoking? Simple. Don’t smoke. Easy? Not so much. Many things require mental willpower to make it happen. Feels like those kind of therapies help make that happen. I know one person who was borderline suicidal and this kind of therapy helped her move life into a nice direction.
no_butterscotch 4y ago
> 2 trips on psilocybe (one month apart), proper set & setting & guide & a lot of talking about it later with a trusted person What does "proper set & setting & guide" mean? Clinical? Or friend/shaman type thing?
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  I'd like to know this as well. I think this is one of the biggest hurdles to a first time user: If you're anxious or depressed, you're by definition not in a good "set". And with psychedelic therapists being rare as unicorns where to find that trip-sitter who isn't just a "That's groovy, man" weirdo that will shape your trip (and your malleable brain) into the bog-standard one with everything experience.
  - no_butterscotch 4y ago
    eh truthfully this is why I asked, I guess you read my comment and saw through the lines :D but yea I'm not "down with the scene", I don't "know people" and have been on anti-depressants for over a decade off and on with little break-through. I've suspected that psychedelics or things like MDMA could help, but I don't know where to turn to for that.
ccooffee 4y ago
Is there a book you recommend for getting started with research? There is enough noise in this space that I find "search the internet" to be...difficult.

by myshpa 4y ago

konfusinomicon 4y ago

I wonder if the same effects can be attained by someone who has used psychedelics recreationionally their entire life, from say 16 onward. is it the external guidance during the experience that really makes the difference? or is a life of experiences responsible for one not having anxiety or depression on those levels

Ayesh 4y ago
Psychedelics, LSD in particular, see their major use being a party drug. Coming from a personal experience, many people decide the "trip" they want to go on way before the trip starts. I am pretty sure there are non-zero amount of people who regularly take psychedelics, but have never been on that kind of "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy EDM, a party, perhaps a hike, paint something, watch a movie, play some sports outside, play video games, etc.
- recyclelater 4y ago
  Edit: I wanted to amend this to say I don’t think people should use psychedelics regularly, which I think my original comment below might imply. Lots of downsides to regular use, occasional (every couple years) seems to have little risk and some benefits in my experience. Original text below is unedited. I dunno, if you regularly use lsd or mushrooms, you probably have had a “wow that was more than I wanted” experience, that means you had complete ego loss, had the veil of reality completely pulled back so you could “see” the arbitrariness of society and human interactions. Your embarrassing actions you have been deluding yourself about come crashing down around you. You sober up and you rationalize some of it away but there’s a big nagging thing in the back of your mind screaming “maybe you should stop doing ____”. At least this has happened to me on a couple of occasions and has led to me apologizing to people, changing my default behaviors, etc. I am not a super introspective person so the kick in the head that psychedelics occasionally provide has allowed for some personality changes that were necessary and good. As an adult I now recognize that these experiences could be beneficial as therapy with the right person to guide you through it, that most people probably don’t get the full benefit these occasional experiences provide by themselves. I didn’t think this while young and just partying (though did have a bit of woo woo collective consciousness mind expansion mindset). Anything other than the recreation aspects of it were me trying to justify why it was ok, and getting high a lot is generally not ok. I actually sobered up for rest of my life after a strong mushroom trip left me thinking I was wasting my life and going down the wrong path. In short, there’s meat here, but of course with all these things there will be people riding a fad and making a buck, but bad usually tags along with the good in some amount.
- MauranKilom 4y ago
  > "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy [stuff] Those are also not mutually exclusive, to be clear. Come for the dance, stay for the self-insight.
mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
It's difficult to explain if you haven't had that kind of experience yourself, but one way to describe it is that psychedelics (some more so than others) open up a window that allows for change. You are no longer stuck in your old ways of thinking that you took for granted. But the experiences themselves don't change you. You still need to put in the work to make the changes. You can certainly do this without a guide. But if you take these drugs recreationally without such intentions and without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term. A guide will help you to get the most out of the experience (while also helping with trip safety). It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not, it's about how you take them.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  "It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not" "without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term" Sounds a lot like cognitive bias to me. It's ultimately a placebo if you still need to put the work in. Ergo, you could achieve the same results even without taking it. It's attributing personal growth to a drug rather than to your own willpower to do something.
  - bambataa 4y ago
    I’m not sure I agree, because people might put in the hard work without the psychedelic and not experience the benefit. Michael Pollan’s “How to change your mind” talks about psychedelic studies where the more effective, longer lasting changes are seen by the people who had more “mystic” experiences. It’s not just about good intentions, or just taking psychedelics, but seemingly priming your mind to use the psychedelics to (temporarily) change fundamental thought patterns.
  - mudrockbestgirl 4y ago
    By that definition, getting therapy is also a placebo. You could go to therapy "recreationally" without wanting to get better or work on yourself. But that's not going to help you. You still need to put in work. Does that make therapy a placebo?
nico 4y ago
Not sure, but I have a friend who has plenty of experience with psychedelics, and he just had his first session of psychedelic therapy with ketamine (done by a medical professional trained to do it). After the session he said it was very different to anything he had done before and that he felt he made a ton of progress. My guess is that the intention that you set before “the trip”, really impacts the experience and hence the results. As well as having a professional guide/sitter that knows how to guide you and create a therapeutic setting.
- hesdeadjim 4y ago
  Buddy of mine recently did a two session psychedelic ketamine treatment with intensive pre and post-support therapy. The changes in his negative habits and ruminative thoughts were impressive. He had done LSD a few times, but he said the ketamine was a much more “safe” feeling experience. I’ve been considering it myself, despite not being depressed or anxious, just to see what channels of growth it might open up.
  - mmsnberbar66 4y ago
    where can you do these therapies?
    - cypherpunks01 4y ago
      USA directory here: https://www.askp.org/directory/ https://www.askp.org/directory/
brnt 4y ago
> is it the external guidance during the experience that really makes the difference? That's what psychiatrists using psycho active drugs say: without proper stage setting and guidance, the experience can be terrifying and traumatic in itself. Remember, not everybody has good trips, especially not people dealing with depression and trauma.

voisin 4y ago

Can you elaborate on your research and how you were able to find the right guide, achieve the proper set & setting?

cainxinth 4y ago

From personal experience, I think one of the reasons psychedelics can help with depression is that when you are severely depressed, it feels permanent, like nothing will ever get better or even meaningfully different. But then you have a psychedelic experience, and for a brief moment, things are very much different. And if the experience is even slightly positive, it reminds you that it’s still possible to feel something good, and that glimmer of hope can chip away at your entrenched fatalism.

Mezzie 4y ago
I'd agree with this. I've never done psychedelics (at least not the kind that are experimentally used for mental health; I did Molly once but fuck that comedown), but I spent years depressed, anxious, guilty, etc. and then I started using weed. I went a little TOO hard for a while, because it was the first time in years I'd had my body and brain giving me primarily GOOD feelings. Which led to me ending up in therapy and actually addressing my PTSD, because then I knew that feeling shitty wasn't just how I was programmed to be biologically because something was Wrong with me. The 'too hard for a while' is probably why these things should be done under medical supervision. I basically spent 8 months blazed out of my mind.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I mean mental health is never just one thing; in your case, weed was a gateway drug to therapy (I'm simplifying to try and keep things light). PTSD and C-PTSD are underdiagnosed or ignored a lot, I think, but there are treaments available. One is EMDR [0] that, anecdotally, was very effective in treating my GF's cptsd. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_a...
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I want to try EMDR but I need to find someone who can adapt it to me since I don't have fine muscle control in my eyes and I used to be blind. (I'm a statistical oddity! YAY!)

immmmmm 4y ago

the second time it cured me from depression, the healing process happened in around 10 minutes where i was taken from the worst to the best. felt like 100's of simultaneous orgasms and was in shock for the next three days. i have read a single take can increase neuronal connectivity by 10% in rodents, which is not surprising after that experience. still feeling great more than a year after. meanwhile my mom gas been on AD for 40 years.

mbesto 4y ago

> Psychedelics can help to show the way, not to solve it. The best way I had it described to me is: Psychedelics are microscopes, not panaceas. A trained psychiatrist is the panacea.

tptacek 4y ago

I'm glad for you, but the researchers involved in this story did an actual RCT with a cohort of patients and measured the effect, and the benefit of psilocybin was shown to be marginal. The study is linked in the first paragraph of the story.

briffle 4y ago
I'd probably take that choice compared to the cost and daily dosing of the pharmacy alternative.
yboris 4y ago
> The study, a small trial run at Imperial College London I'm puzzled how a small trial run can derail decades of larger-scale evidence?
- tptacek 4y ago
  The larger-scale evidence is of much lower quality than an RCT. I don't think the study is dispositive, but it's strong evidence, much stronger than a message board axiomatic derivation of why psilocybin should work.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    RCTs are not magic. They are not always strong evidence, and not always any sort of evidence. The details always matter.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I don't disagree with any of this.
ncmncm 4y ago
Almost all RCTs involving depression throw a bunch of people diagnosed with "depression", but suffering a variety of conditions, all given that label, in a tank together. The treatment may help a few, harm others, and have no effect on the rest, and the treatment is then labeled "ineffective". RCTs depend for validity absolutely upon precise, accurate diagnosis for validity. Bad diagnostics => meaningless results. RCTs are not magic. They can be as wrong as anything stupidly performed. RCTs around depression are worse than most.

johnfn 4y ago

I'm confused how your first sentence appears to say that you completely solved your depression, addictions, anxiety, neurosis and worldview with two trips, and your second sentence says that depression can't be solved with a pill. These seem to be at odds, unless I'm missing something.

MauranKilom 4y ago
"A trip" is more than just a pill - set & setting are just as important. And what it gives you is an alternative perspective on your own life, which you still have to convert into actual change in your mindset/life afterwards.
birdyrooster 4y ago
Even if you take psychedelics it won’t magically fix your problems bc most peoples problems are systemic. The system must change but the psychedelics allow the user to see the value in the change.

barrysteve 4y ago

I'm glad you had a good outcome. It's difficult to relate to your experience from the outside. Most of the time people talk about these experiences, they are vague and difficult to understand. Sometimes in poor cases it can sound like gym-bro science where I should totally pop a supplement because this guy had a good experience on it and trust me bro. I would love to know more specifically about the subjective experience is like, so we can pick out pieces that have a greater meaning to collective understanding. Depression is an umbrella term for one experience caused by many, many different problems. Some chronic medical situations are going to allow your body to be re-depressed after a positive drug experience, so being able to see subjective reports in detail can allow the public to decide if it's worth doing a psychedelic treatment. Not to mention we should probably map this experience out to slowly cut down on the same speculative questions every time drugs come up; about the divine/psychological/medical nature of a drug trip.

josephg 4y ago
> Most of the time people talk about these experiences, they are vague and difficult to understand. I’ve taken LSD a few times. When people ask about it I like to say that the experience is exactly like how people describe it, but nothing like what I expected. Trying to “map it out” in complete detail would be like trying to map out sex. I’m not convinced I can fully explain my experience, and even if I did, I bet your experience would be different from mine. Maybe the best description I can give is that your mind stops suppressing a lot of thoughts. When I hear music on LSD my brain turns the music into a whole planet that looks like that music sounds. When I look in the mirror I see myself as a fey creature full of animus and life. The things that my sober self stresses about seem ridiculous - like the fears of a 5 year old. And I still feel trapped by my fears at the same time. It’s a very unique experience. As Sam Harris says, if you take enough LSD it’s impossible to be bored.
- naasking 4y ago
  > Trying to “map it out” in complete detail would be like trying to map out sex. I’m not convinced I can fully explain my experience, and even if I did, I bet your experience would be different from mine. That's exactly right. I think of it like this: you've spent a lifetime building and entrenching filters around your perceptions and thought patterns to react to them. They persist because in evolutionary terms you being still alive means your behaviour is "adaptive" in a sense, irrespective of how you actually feel. Psychedelics temporarily tear down most of those filters and disrupt those thought patterns, allowing you to perceive things in very novel ways and react to hem very differently. Nobody's thought patterns or filters are going to be the same and so nobody's psychedelic experience will be the same even though many of them will have similarities (we are the same species in the same culture after all).

Maursault 4y ago

> Depression is (imho) not to be healed with "here, swallow a pill", structural changes to one's life are necessary. Clinical depression rarely has anything to do with what you've done or events in the outside world. Psychiatry has settled on treating depression with two strokes, a cocktail which is a chemical antidepressent, and a chemical stabilizer, and they expect you to take these daily and stay on it for the rest of your life. I have no evidence for it, but I assume this is some pharmaceutical company's agenda, to keep you a customer for the rest of your life. While it works, chemicals always have side-effects, and with so much exposure, daily, they are bound to compound, making it more difficult to consume. Therapy alone can cure depression, it just takes a lot of time and effort. I don't think it is possible talk therapy could ever make things worse, but it just doesn't work fast enough. Still, recommended. But I have discovered a way to cure depression relatively quickly in two ways. First, chemically, but without a life sentence. I have discovered a substance that will cure depression overnight, not unlike an aspirin cures a headache. You get headaches, too? How would you feel about being told you need to take a daily medication for the rest of your life to cure it? No, one dose will do. The drug is unregulated, and is available OTC in cough gels. You won't find this in any PDR, but depending on the patient's weight, say for a 160lb. man, 900mg of dextromethorphan will cure depression overnight, and it has been for some time in many clinical studies exploring its potential as a fast acting treatment for treatment-resistant depression. You take the large dose with a pepsid, and go to bed, wake the next day depression free, and its depression-killing effects can last up to a year. It is an old and safe drug, and the lethal overdose is estimated, because it is unknown. Though it is an OTC remedy for cough, dextromethorphan has already been approved for treatment of emotional incontinence, which could be seen as sort of a cousin of depression. The other cure, chemical free, is sunlight. Light in the eyes regulates mood. Not enough light will eventually cause depression. Too much light will cause mania (as we should have suspected from the exploits of Florida Man). Put enough sunlight in your eyes, it will cure your clinical depression. If daylight is not enough, get an artificial light that is an accurate simulator of natural sunlight, which is probably not LED, due to too much blue light, which also damages the eye and slowly blinds you, but you can't go wrong with halogen. Point it at your eyes. You can even close your eyes, light goes right through the eye lids and is still effective at fighting depression.

4y ago

hi5eyes 4y ago

Psychs often leave oneself with the motivation to make radical changes to improve themselves implementing those changes over time is the key

ParallelThread 4y ago

Are you in the US? Where can I find information about people who can help me be with the experience safely?

molszanski 4y ago

People confuse simple with easy. How to quit smoking? Simple. Don’t smoke. Easy? Not so much. Many things require mental willpower to make it happen. Feels like those kind of therapies help make that happen. I know one person who was borderline suicidal and this kind of therapy helped her move life into a nice direction.

no_butterscotch 4y ago

> 2 trips on psilocybe (one month apart), proper set & setting & guide & a lot of talking about it later with a trusted person What does "proper set & setting & guide" mean? Clinical? Or friend/shaman type thing?

GameOfFrowns 4y ago
I'd like to know this as well. I think this is one of the biggest hurdles to a first time user: If you're anxious or depressed, you're by definition not in a good "set". And with psychedelic therapists being rare as unicorns where to find that trip-sitter who isn't just a "That's groovy, man" weirdo that will shape your trip (and your malleable brain) into the bog-standard one with everything experience.
- no_butterscotch 4y ago
  eh truthfully this is why I asked, I guess you read my comment and saw through the lines :D but yea I'm not "down with the scene", I don't "know people" and have been on anti-depressants for over a decade off and on with little break-through. I've suspected that psychedelics or things like MDMA could help, but I don't know where to turn to for that.

ccooffee 4y ago

Is there a book you recommend for getting started with research? There is enough noise in this space that I find "search the internet" to be...difficult.