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LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy
- zebra 13y agoA friend of mine had very good results in work with micro-dosing - he took 1/10 of trip dose and was more focused and creative. He suffered no hallucinations or giggles. EDIT: Just trying to give second good use of this substance. Easing the suffering of a terminally ill person is good. Enhancing creativity and focus in young person is also good.
- ambler0 13y agoWas this friend working in the laboratory then?
- Pxtl 13y agoTo be fair, the article is about the polar opposite approach: Giving a full-bore hallucinogenic dose to people who are dying anyways so it really can't make their situation worse, and seeing if it helps them cope with the inevitable. Which is very interesting. I always feel like the war on drugs is horribly unfair to people in end-of-life situations who really should have access to all the most destructive mind-altering chemicals to ease that.
- kmtrowbr 13y agoJust to be fair, 'destructive' seems like a bad adjective to apply to LSD. It's way, way less toxic than alcohol, for example. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence.png http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_depen... 'Mind altering' yes, I will grant you that. But most things you ingest are mind altering. For example, this chocolate chip cookie I am eating now will shortly make me feel a burst of energy, but then shortly afterwards, sleepy and fat.
- rasur 13y agoI believe it was Aldous Huxley who, on his death-bed, requested a mixture of LSD and Opiates to leave this world by. Frankly, I applaud that kind of thinking. EDIT: My apologies, I did not see dns's comment below, saying the same thing, but with actual links :)
- berberous 13y agoI've never tried micro-dosing but those interested in the idea should check out Gwern's lengthy piece on the subject: http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing
- natdempk 13y agoWhen this got posted before on HN the consensus was likely that the LSD got destroyed before he actually took any. I would really like to see that study done with more controlled dosing/storage.
- gwern 13y agoThe comments to that effect were balderdash.
- natdempk 13y agoRight, didn't realize that the article was updated to address some of the concerns that were initially left. Have you considered repeating the experiment with a slightly larger dosage?
- gwern 13y agoNo, not really. It's a relatively expensive and illegal habit, LSD has gotten much harder to get due to the black-market turmoil, and I think my experiment massively knocked down the already-low odds microdoses would do anything useful for me. It is unlikely I will ever revisit the topic unless some other high-quality blinded experiments are released.
- melloclello 13y agoI have tried microdosing. Took a sixth of a tab and disappeared for eight hours. When I emerged from this fugue state there was all this code there that wasn't there before~ In retrospect, that probably wasn't microdosing so much as it was just coding on acid.
- mvanvoorden 13y agoOne trip about 2 years ago made me realize that I should not worry about things I can't control, and changed me from the bitter, angry person I'd become to the life loving happy person I used to be when I was young, in an instant.
- bananas 13y agoAbout 20 years ago I had some bad shit going on in my life and did the same. It was the most horrible experience of my life. I thought I was shitting snakes and they were then eating me. However I instantly stopped smoking, drinking and haven't touched anything since. YMMV as they say. Edit: perhaps its related but it was shortly after that I finally grokked Unix and C.
- essteesee 13y agobut that's what psychedelics do. they magnify what you bring to the experience and give it back to you 10 fold.
- melling 13y agoScientifically speaking, are you saying that this would be the result for most people? Steve Jobs, for example, famously took LSD but he certainly cared about controlling most things in his life, and sweated the details.
- mvanvoorden 13y agoI like to control things as well, but not things I am not able to, like other people, or distant wars, or politicians, etc :) Anyway, I got a lot of insights that really changed my life for the better. Funny thing is that most of it is common knowledge, these things that are 'easier said than done', that then turn out to be just as easy done as said :) (I can only talk from my own perspective of course)
- angersock 13y agoYeah, but he was kind of a douche.
- GuiA 13y agoI'm glad the taboos around psychedelics research, especially as tools for therapy, are slowly falling down- there's some fascinating stuff in there. To people who have never experienced drugs, grown up in a culture that demonizes them all indiscriminately, have a hard time wrapping their head around what they are/do exactly but are curious about them, I recommend this article by Sam Harris, a great neuroscientist[0] For a slightly more in depth essay, Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception" [1] is a great book, albeit slightly dated. There are also some extremely interesting synergies between the origins of the computer industry and the psychedelics/California counter culture era. John Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said" [2] is a fantastic read, although it requires knowing about computer history a little bit already. I learned from it that there was scientific research on LSD conducted in Menlo Park, a few blocks away from where I used to live. There's also a great essay by Timothy Leary about parallels between psychedelics as tools for expanding the human mind and the computer as a tool to enhance the human brain in Brenda Laurel's book "Art of Human Computer Interaction Design". [3] There's a great essay by Carl Sagan about his experiences using marijuana creatively/intellectually [4]. I had never tried any drugs before moving to California in my 20s, and had grown up in a fairly standard European culture of all drugs = the devil. Some changes occurred, and it turns out there's a really fascinating history and philosophy in there (especially w/ regards to parallels with computer history, as described in the aforementioned book). [0]: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-... [1]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Of-Perception-thINKing/dp/1907590099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956956&sr=8-1&keywords=doors+of+perception http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Of-Perception-thINKing/dp/19... [2]: http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Personal/dp/0143036769/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956981&sr=8-1&keywords=dormouse+said http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pers... [3]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface-Design/dp/0201517973/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956970&sr=8-2&keywords=art+of+human+computer+interaction http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface-Desig... [4]: http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/
- EC1 13y agoBefore entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's super social to go smoke a joint with my bosses after work and have a beer, I love it. I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity. I feel as if the emotional/mental pain I suffered by not having any outlet greatly outweighs the physical damage I'm doing to myself. Now that I smoke/drink while working most of the time (self unemployed), I find that I am much more productive because I'm enjoying myself the entire time. Tunes, a drink, a smoke, and code. Never seen talk on HN about drugs really. What's your routine like with HN? What are your experiences?
- skidoo 13y agoWay to go, Obamacare.
- debt 13y agoI gotta say if you're an expert at something or at least consider yourself an expert at something: take LSD. LSD really dislodges how you view the world; it cleans out your mental system, like moving a fridge and cleaning all the crap that's been swept under there over the years. I would love if some of these prominent intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or any of the nobel prize winners did LSD. I saw a really intense movie a few days before I did mushrooms and it totally changed how I viewed the world during my mushroom trip. I can only imagine if you've been sitting on some idea(especially a really big intense one like how humans acquire language(!)) for decades how LSD would completely alter your viewpoint.
- biofox 13y agoThere are at least two Nobel Laureates who have used LSD: Kary Mullis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis Francis Crick http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/science/11book.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/science/11book.html?_r=0
- phusion 13y agoAnd let's not forget the Wired article http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70015?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70015?...
- dobbsbob 13y agoLarry Hagman credited LSD with helping him to quit booze. Shakes your brain up like a snowglobe breaking all those addiction paths, so he claimed. I did ridiculous amounts of Nicholas Sand made LSD back in the early 90s when I was Lisp hacking, went from depressed teen to motivated info sponge couldn't read enough
- sar9 13y agoI wish more experienced DMT. It's like the ultimate Oculus Rift. The resolution, colors and sense of intelligence communicating with you is beyond anything any other psychedelic can produce. It is literally like opening a door to another dimension, one full of overwhelming love. Maybe it's just a biological trick but it is one of the most fascinating and unbelievable things in nature. Not everyone should try it but I hope one day Sam Harris eventually does. His insight on it would be riveting.
- dnc 13y agoThis is striking testimony about Aldous Huxley taking LSD on his deathbed written by his wife: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-death.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-death.ht.... It seems that this very emotional account is in accordance with the findings of the Swiss psychiatrists.
- spinlock 13y agoI had a friend in college -- really smart physics major -- drop acid one summer and lose the ability to do math. He needed to take a year off and finally finished his degree but was never on top of his game again. I'm not saying that always or even usually happens. But, acid is no joke and I just wanted to make sure that the inexperience reading this know that trips can go really wrong. Especially when you aren't using medical grade LSD but whatever you can buy from a stranger on SilkRoad/wherever.
- jey 13y ago> lose the ability to do math What does that mean? (How did it play out and what did it look like?)
- spinlock 13y agoI have no idea what was going on inside his head but he just couldn't figure out things like making change for a dollar. He and my roommate were doing their calculus homework shortly before he left and he just couldn't do simple problems. He went from just getting math to being mistified by it.
- munkle 13y agoIt is true that LSD can mess you up if taken under certain circumstances, however, you shouldn't intimidate the inexperience. If all you ever heard about LSD is that it could mess you up, then there is a higher probably that it will harm you. Instead, I would recommend the following to all those who are inexperienced: Make sure you understand it's effects and try to find someone who has experience with LSD to guide you through your first trip.
- tothepixel 13y agoThe paradoxical thing about LSD is that you simply cannot understand its effects until you've already tried it.
- RivieraKid 13y ago
- snake_plissken 13y agoI've always found it incredibly amazing that psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT etc) were outlawed in responses to forms of massive, peaceful "movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the movement were known to do; that legislators and policy makers were so afraid of the affects these chemicals would have on society that they had to put the serious force of the law behind getting them out of the hands and the minds of the people.
- Nursie 13y agoI think it was just a convenient way to continue to suppress the counterculture while also looking tough and moral, because we all know how much our politicians love that. The effects of LSD in freeing peoples minds or somehow waking them up to reality are exaggerated IMHO. I mean, do you need LSD to know the government is wasting your money and making insane legislation?
- benched 13y agoI guess if it is humble enough, that opinion isn't too harmful. I think many people would find it dismissive of their experience, especially since you have no justification for characterizing their experience for them. To presume to speak of "The LSD Experience" is anything but humble.
- Nursie 13y agoI'm not characterising their experience for them, it's far too variable and subjective to do that. I also didn't use the phrase "The LSD Experience" so I'm not sure why you felt the need to quote that. What I will say is that some people seem to come back from it convinced that acid will change the face of humanity and society in some sort of miraculous way. But when pressed they can't say how. I don't think it's wrong to combine this with the fact that LSD can cause feelings of the profound over the most mundane or nonsensical things and come to the conclusion that they're probably off on one... As I said - do you need acid to see the problems in our human society?
- lutusp 13y agoA quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse." I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked about their emotional state after the treatment ended. This is a classic case where the Placebo effect cannot be either eliminated or discounted. This is not say that LSD has no beneficial effects in therapy. This is to say we have no idea, and this study provides no useful scientific data.
- disgruntledphd2 13y agoInterestingly enough, there was a student at Harvard in the 1960's (recounted in the Varieties of Psychedelic Experience), who did a placebo-controlled study of psilocybin (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment). Long term follow-ups seem to indicate that the differences (in terms of a self-report questionnaire, at least) were maintained over 25 years. In the book at least, it was concluded (by the primary researcher) that the blinding was completely ineffective (though I don't think that this was confirmed with a manipulation check). I would say that placebo-controlled studies of psychedelics, for similar reasons that placebo-controlled studies of other drugs (cigarettes, coffee, alcohol) will be difficult. Namely that a placebo should be identical to the treatment in every respect except for the active ingrediant, and what's the active ingrediant? Its really well-worth checking out the Varieties for some good pointers to research in the 50's and 60's, there was quite a lot of it, and although some of it was methodologically unsound, and there are very few RCT's, the sheer amount of studies should probably carry some weight.
- benched 13y agoI hesitate to even bother in this environment, where anything other than studies that meet the standards of rigor of Hacker News are dismissed, however: A lot of people have a lot of idea about it, because a lot of psychiatrists and psychotherapists used LSD on their patients (and themselves) before it was outlawed.
- Zelphyr 13y ago
- conradfr 13y agoMy mother suffered from cluster headaches recently (the worst pain you can endure in life they say). Apparently mushrooms and LSD are unofficial treatments. When asked, her doctor encouraged her to use mushrooms ... Apparently a non-psychedelic version of LSD could be made but it's difficult to justify spending millions in research with the official stance regarding drugs. I'm glad change seems to come, albeit slowly ...
- dave809 13y agoDid the mushrooms help?
- conradfr 13y agoThey have been ordered but not received yet.
- filoeleven 13y agoI heard from a friend who gets bad migraines that you do not need to take a full dose, causing psychedelic effects, in order to get the relief/prevention. She said that a half dose prevented migraines for about two weeks. I do not know if the same strategy would work for cluster headaches, or even if it's a universally applicable characteristic of the drug, but if your mother is not the adventurous type or is unsure about tripping, she may want to try a smaller amount first to see if she can get the prevention without the mind-altering effects. Good luck in any case.
- conradfr 13y agoYes it's true. That was a deciding factor to try it as she is against drugs for herself by fear of bad trip :) The only downside (well except the breaking the law thing) is only that you have to be off the regular treatment to try it, so you may have to endure the pain for some days.
- refurb 13y agoThere are already analogues of hallucinogens used to treat headaches/migraines. They've been around for decades... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatriptan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatriptan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methysergide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methysergide
- ambiguator 13y agoThey'd probably have better results if they did their experiment outdoors.
- yogi123 13y agoThe most prominent researcher in LSD therapy was Stan Grof. Look up his books - they are the definitive material for psychiatric work using psychedelics. There are experiences in the books that will blow your mind. I believe he was head of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins, before this research was shut down. However, it is interesting that he now appears to be a proponent of meditation and other methods, as far as I know. He teaches an interesting technique called holotropic breathing which aims to replicate the benefits without the risk. I think a prominent meditation teacher summed it up best when he said that psychedelics can lead to a powerful opening, but they are not a path.
- benched 13y agoStan Grof's books are some of the best I've found on the topic of consciousness and 'reality' in general. He is so committed to learning about consciousness, he kept exploring the subject by whatever means he could find or invent, even after he could no longer work with psychedelics. I was lucky to attend a talk he gave on LSD just a few months ago.
- davidtanner 13y agoGrof's work _Beyond the Brain_ is particularly interesting. From what little I have read about it, I think holotropic breathing is both physically safe and able to be discontinued at any point during the experience - unlike LSD.
- Lambdanaut 13y agoI'm all for LSD being considered for certain therapeutic cases. I took it at a time of my life when I'd been having a sustained identity crisis for years on end, something I'd made known to friends and family. I had no idea who I was supposed to be and I felt like I was just running on auto-pilot, idly guessing at how I should react to situations and being surprised when things turned out okay. I read tons of self-help books and "know-thy-self" pamphlets, but I was still clueless. After the LSD, I completely knew who I was again, and I've been on that steady path ever since. It's a good thing to try when you need to do some introspection that you've been having substantial trouble coming to a solution over. I seriously believe it skipped over a decades worth of introspection for me. I mean, I was already on year "3" of my crisis, and I had made zilch headway. It gets you through things that are nigh impossible to do without it. That of course combined with the low-toxicity and lack of a potential for addiction makes it a no-brainer. Like somebody else commented, it's like it shakes your brain up like a snowglobe breaking all of those strongly held pathways in your brain that you would normally be unable to even see. It destroys false pre-conceptions about yourself like a steamroller, and then it helps you build the correct notions back up.
- dkarl 13y agoPeter, the social worker, agreed. “I will say I have been more emotional since the study ended, and I don’t mean always cheerful,” he said. “But I think it’s better to feel things strongly — better to be alive than to merely function.” It's interesting that society has long been comfortable pushing drugs that have the opposite effect, resulting in poor compliance by patients who complain of feeling "dead" or "not there."
- jolohaga 13y agoGlad to see a return to awakening.
- imperio59 13y agoYes, let's all get high so we won't face any of our problems... What a load of garbage. This is science?! No, it's a fucking fraud.
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- rectangletangle 13y agoAbout time, LSD has been proven to be extremely effective at treating cluster headaches. A condition I've heard described as the most painful thing a human can experience.
- samstave 13y agoUnpopular opinion penguin: If you're in tech and have not done LSD; you should notbe in tech.
- benched 13y agoI wouldn't put it so absolutely, but I agree that the kind of people who manipulate some of the most complex systems ever devised by humankind, are the kind of people who would probably benefit greatly from a trip.
- samstave 13y agoTrue, but then my statement wouldn't be meme-y enough :)
- rachellaw 13y agoIf anyone is seriously considering taking LSD please check for drug/chemical interactions first Most drugs have zero effect if you have ptsd, clinical depression and schizoaffective or similar; LSD will probably make it worse and party drugs (amphetamines) won't work on you. Everyone else will get high, and you'll be bored and sober.
- hnisnotreddit 13y agoHallucinogens have done wnders for my PTSD and depression issues. Please do not confuse them with Amphetamines or other non-hallucinogens. That said, if you are on MAOI's or SSRI's, you would do well to end their use before attempting any hallucinogen stronger than cannabis.
- rachellaw 13y agoyes that's my concern (drug interactions) I've seen curious users mix all kinds of things without checking first, and they've never had any experience in doing drugs (either legal or illegal) and end up worse off In terms of reactions, I think it varies from person to person. Generally speaking though, hallucinogens aggravate existing psychotic disorders. If you suffer from PTSD/depression it's not a psychotic disorder (so it's relatively safe for you to take). Curiously enough, a subset of patients suffering from ptsd/depression/anxiety don't experience the euphoria associated with amphetamines. I'm sorry if I didn't word myself clearly enough
- veganarchocap 13y agoThey should reconsider MDMA for therapy as well, there was no good reason to ban it, and it was working well for people with post traumatic stress syndrome, people with terminal illnesses etc.
- smonff 13y agoThis is not new. It is known for depression treatment for a long time.
- uptownJimmy 13y agoThis stuff can be no surprise to many of us, right? I'm not sure I would have made it out of the darkness of my formative years without those profound psychotropic experiences I had as a young man.