Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I've often made this analogy. Meditation is like riding your bike into the woods. When you start out, you're not in shape so you don't get very far, but you don't end up farther in than you can handle. Psychedelics are like hitchhiking: you get a lot farther, don't always know where the fuck you are, and can usually get back safely (but not always).
Psychedelic drugs provide an experience of absorption like a trance. When one is absorbed in such a state, it's the first direct experience of a sense of self that is immaterial (but finite). Buddhist meditation (samadhi or "right concentration" in the Noble Eightfold Path) goes very far beyond that and into very different states of consciousness.
Gil Fronsdal is a Stanford Ph.D who teaches clearly, logically, and in stepwise progression. You can learn here:
http://www.audiodharma.org/talks-intromed.html
If you're interested in empirical studies of samadhi, Dr. James Austin published a book called "Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness" from MIT press.
I hope this helps alleviate your panic and brings you clarity and harmony of mind.
Exceptions: some aren't so bad, like caffeine or aspirin or wine. But always use in moderation.
Psychedelics are a completely different class of drug, of course, from coke and alcohol. Most people lump together utterly different behaviors (cocaine at a party vs. shrooms in the woods) into "doing drugs", and that isn't really fair. I think psychedelics have a lot of value to offer humanity, but they are dangerous and we, as a society, need to rediscover safe means of using them.
The experiences become a lot less profound for the frequent users, and they themselves also become a lot more messed up. The truth is that if you have a psychedelic experience every Friday night, it's not nearly as interesting.
With spiritual practice, you gain a sort of humility and perspective along the way. It's not only about experiences, but also community and morality. For people who use the drugs to get the experiences, but don't grow in the other dimensions, it just leads to nihilism once the novelty wears off. Acidheads' lives become empty and there's little benefit in exploring an empty mind.
Some people use LSD as a party drug, and I think this results in a lot of the bad trips. It's dangerous as well as idiotic, and indicates that a person is missing the point if you ask me, but the behavior exists.
My memory of LSD was that the first 8 hours were mind-blowing and amazing (and not particularly scary) but the last 4 were a bit unpleasant, like I had an itch in my mind I couldn't scratch (but not as bad as a bad trip or a panic attack). I dropped at 3:40 pm, peaked at 6, and started getting tired of the whole endeavor by midnight. At 1:30 am I was trying desperately to get to sleep (impossible on LSD) and annoyed that my mind kept playing tricks on itself. Thankfully, my girlfriend (at the time) was there to reassure me that this was normal and would end.
I've often thought, though, that the intensity of LSD and mushrooms is related to the duration of time one is in a psychedelic/meditative state (when psychedelics are not used in a meditative state, they're wasted). I bet that if I had the focus to meditate for 6 hours, it'd be as powerful of an experience (or moreso) than a shrooms trip; same with 12 hours viz. LSD.
Given how personal and intense my experiences were for both how I relate to myself and the world, but also with my relationship with my best friends, I can't imagine really doing LSD or Mushrooms in a rave/party like environment.
That anyone even entertains the notion that alcohol isn't significantly more dangerous than psilocybin demonstrates how extremely misguided the public is about the subject.
"but have also wrecked a lot of people ... becoming an acid-head is a terrible idea ... are exhaustingly boring people."
It's also interesting that many people can't help but view this issue through the prism of their own cultural biases, stereotypes and anecdotes.
I could be wrong, but as I understand it, they're different categories of danger altogether. Alcohol can kill you. Psilocybin can't, but it is at least possible that it can lead to mental illness. Although the probability of psilocybin leading to lifelong psychosis seems to be astronomically low, that's a fate I'd easily mark as 10 times worse than early death... so there's more downside to the psychedelics. At least with psychedelics, the risks are more subjective and much more poorly understood.
Ever have a terrifyingly bad trip? Or a panic attack? If the answer to both is no, and you haven't been to war (I haven't), you have no idea of the depths of negative human experience, nor of post-event fallout. Having suffered from panic attacks and endured bad trips, I'd be terrified to go anywhere near even a 1 in 1 million chance of lifelong mental illness, even though I take that risk of death every day just by being alive.
I don't know what the probability of having a psychotic break on shrooms is. I bet it's low, but it seems to happen. The open question is whether these psychological events were "waiting in the wings" so to speak. It has been argued that the people having these problems were doomed to have them anyway, and that the drugs merely sped them along, but the jury seems to still be out on that one.
With alcohol, we have an extremely dangerous drug but we know what the dangers are, and we're generally pretty good at dosage control (which we have to be, since the ratio between a fatal dose and the average recreational dose is so low). When I buy a beer, I know how much alcohol I'm getting and can control the dosage.
In cultures that use psychedelics for religious purposes, there's no increased risk of mental illness for users of the substances, which leads me to believe that the substances themselves are actually pretty safe, but we're talking about people who have been using the substances responsibly for decades. It's difficult to use them in our context so pristinely-- the supply comes from an illegal scumbag market that provides unreliable goods, dosage is erratic, users are generally uneducated about what they're doing and have psychological hangups (I believe that guilt/fear about using drugs is one of the causes of bad trips).
It's also interesting that many people can't help but view this issue through the prism of their own cultural biases, stereotypes and anecdotes.
Look: I've actually used these drugs, and I know that for many people, they're provide wonderful experiences. I've had a few great experiences on them, even though I don't use them now and probably never will.
The people I'm talking about are the party types who are using these drugs all the time, to the point that drugs are the only things in their lives. That's what I mean by "acidhead", "e-tard", etc. and that's a terrible road to go down. I'm not talking about the person who uses acid a couple times per year or even a couple times per month. I'm talking about the people who use them so intensely and frequently that they start organizing their lives around drugs instead of the other way around. (I highly doubt that you're in this category, seeing as you post on HN.)
That's the point. Although the relationship between psilocybin and psychosis is unclear, it's already very well established that alcohol aggravates mental disorders and causes psychosis. On top of that, all available evidence suggests that psilocybin is very physically safe, while all available evidence suggests that alcohol is very physically unsafe.
There is absolutely no rational reason to believe that psilocybin is anywhere near as dangerous as alcohol, and it's a gross disservice to even entertain the myth.
Furthermore, alcohol isn't the only legal substance that is connected with psychosis; a number of prescription drugs and even caffeine are linked to it.
"That's what I mean by "acidhead", "e-tard", etc. and that's a terrible road to go down"
But do these stereotypes really provide any value to this discussion? For just about any thing there is a subculture that indulges in that thing and people who hate that subculture. Should we ban plush animals because people find furries intolerable?
This is interesting. What about the danger of bad trips? For example, I know that if I drink 2 beers, I'll get a buzz and as long as I don't drive, I'm safe. I don't know that with regard to shrooms. I've never had a bad trip on those, but I've had terrifying salvia trips, and I have a problem with panic attacks, so I don't have that assurance and would tend to avoid using them.
Do you believe that psilocybin would be relatively safe if used under proper circumstances? I'd love for that to be true.
Also, going back to alcohol, with 2 beers, I'll give you that the risk is low. But as that goes up, not only does the potential damage from the alcohol go up, but also your behavior. Increased aggression, etc. I know a guy who broke his hand because he punched a wall while drunk, etc.
Also... do you know any true alcoholics? I mean the real dysfunctional kind? They are worse than any e-head I know. Waiting outside the liquor store at 11 am til it opens, drinking the entire bottle the moment they leave, etc... They are right up there with the worst of drug addicts. I've never even heard of that happening from mushrooms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis
"Alcohol is also a common risk of causing psychotic disorders or episodes. Research has shown that alcohol abuse causes an 8-fold increase in psychotic disorders in men and a 3 fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in women. Alcoholic psychosis is sometimes misdiagnosed as a mental illness such as schizophrenia."
The people I'm talking about are the party types who are using these drugs all the time, to the point that drugs are the only things in their lives.
That doesn't seem a very strong argument. I would argue that everything is subject to psychological addiction. Gambling, World of Warcraft, the Internet, sex... it's physical addiction what should be controlled. I could see the point on banning, say, crack. Or alcohol. Or tobacco. But hallucinogens?
And people (in general) aren't all that great at controlling alcohol dosages. If it wasn't for the bodies natural reaction (becoming incapacitated), people would die all the time. How many times have you seen people vomiting (in the bathroom, if we're lucky) or passed out due to drinking too much?
If you mean dosage per drink, I'd again they say that falls out naturally based on the amount of alcohol people can handle to taste, rather than proof of rational control.
And it's not even that there is now empirical evidence to make it "true." These guys aren't the first to do these sorts of experiments.
So have completely insane people. If only we had some way to tell when people were full of shit...oh wait, thanks science!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin
> The only difference between that and a shaman is clinical trials.
Yeah, man, totally. Well, that and safe dosage, drug interactions, toxicity profile, half-life, chemical formula, side-effects...
> Except, of course, that the shaman actually has an explanation for how his medicine works
This merely proves that anyone anywhere can invent a just-so story.
Yeah, man, totally. Well, that and safe dosage, drug interactions...
I only have direct experience with ayahuasca shamanism, but for that case, they do have most of those things, as well as demonstrable, and reproducible, curative effects, and have reportedly had them for thousands of years. (Obviously, that last isn't a claim I can very well verify.)
...anyone anywhere can invent a just-so story.
Just so, and I didn't mean to imply that I personally believe the shamans' version of how their medicine works. Regardless of their beliefs, mine, or anyone else's, however, it does; there's no way people would continue to come back, over millennia, to what can be one of the most harrowing experiences I can conceive, if it didn't.
Moreover, there are documented studies, done by genuine lab-coat-wearing scientist types, with measured doses and control groups and everything, that detail its effects, and its unambiguous efficacy. It's only the prevailing sentiment towards psychedelic compounds, and the restrictions on their study that engenders, that have prevented the kind of exploration I think we'd both like to see -- which is the point TFA was making in the first place.
2) Moreover, there are documented studies, done by genuine lab-coat-wearing scientist types, with measured doses and control groups and everything, that detail its effects, and its unambiguous efficacy. It's only the prevailing sentiment towards psychedelic compounds, and the restrictions on their study that engenders, that have prevented the kind of exploration I think we'd both like to see -- which is the point TFA was making in the first place.'
1) You're talking about a very small number of people, relatively speaking, over a very long period of time, compounded with a lot of mostly second hand, passed down knowledge that has absolutely no recorded data, ie: at best a ton of correlation without causation (correct me if I'm wrong). Humans have been wrong many times before like this, and for just as long, under similar circumstances.
2) You're talking about something very specific, reproducible, and testable. I don't mean to be culturally insensitive, but there is a very real and demonstrably greater value to this kind of information.
They've been doing this for thousands of years; I'm pretty sure they have far a better idea of the risks than your comment seems to me to intimate. (Assuming, of course, that they aren't just brujos, there primarily to take the gringo's money. That's not a problem with the medicine as much as it is with the practitioner, however. Even then, they likely know the risks very well; they simply ignore them. As with everything else, the doctrine of caveat emptor applies.)
Well: some people. And "known" from their own uncontrolled (in the scientific sense) trials.
Seems to me that the important thing in this report is the systematic research using controlled studies.
Perhaps most helpful was the evidence that side-effects or negative reactions were quite infrequent and were manageable by attendants (aka "guides" in the 60s). Those types of findings might eventually open the door for public funding of research (note that most studies were funded by psychedelic-sympathetic agencies).
Actually they are the first to do most of them. Back in the 60s they used to use LSD, which they no longer use because it's too long lasting and also because of its bad reputation. We also now have an empirically derived mysticism scale which wasn't available in the 60s, as well as a bunch of new methodologies that are much tighter than what they were using for the good friday experiments.
Not to mention that in the 60s the studies they were doing weren't on end-of-life anxiety, and it wasn't even known that ego death was the key mediating variable.
edit: And, most importantly, the reason they're doing these experiments is to get psilocybin approved as a drug by the FDA. And I somehow doubt the argument that because LSD had some similar benefits in minimally controlled trials 50 years ago, that psilocybin should now be moved to schedule 3 without safety or efficacy testing.
I want to hear more about this.
http://csp.org/experience/docs/hood_dimensions.html
If you went and searched Google Scholar or JSTOR I'm sure you could find the rest of the papers based on that. I'm pretty sure that Roland Griffiths also mentions it here:
http://premium.gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/entry/2009-01-11T2...
The scientists who are behind them have made significant (to put it mildly) sacrifices to advance a cause that you will benefit from. "Irritation" is an ungracious reaction (to put it mildly).