A Dose of a Hallucinogen from a ‘Magic Mushroom,’ and Then Lasting Peace
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> “People will take psilocybin at a rave or at Burning Man” — the art and performance desert festival — “but the effect,” he said, “evaporates like water running through their hands.”
It certainly doesn't hurt to have a trip sitter or to discuss the experience with someone understanding, but this is a completely unwarranted conclusion. It seems like Dr. Griffiths needs it to not have an effect outside of a clinical setting, which is just so unfortunate. I would rate doing mushrooms as one of the single most important decisions of my life.
Unfortunately, all too many people take psychedelics (and other drugs) frivolously, to "party", or even self-destructively, in many settings which are not very conducive towards positive transformation, and surrounded by people who wouldn't understand or might even react negatively towards a tripping person. Many people also trip without experienced sitters, and don't have any kind of plan or even intention of integrating the experience after they have it. They also rarely get therapy before or after the experience.
As a result, it is very common for people to have unproductive trips, or have difficulty integrating the really beneficial ones in the long term. So while it's still possible, I think it's less likely than if you are in a very positive, supportive environment, and being guided by experienced sitters who know how to encourage the best experience possible, and will do therapy before and after, and help you integrate what you learned.
I was lucky to always use Magic Mushrooms that we just picked fresh. I had a friend that was a botanist that helped us with identification.
My most spiritual experiences, and by far most favorite were with mushrooms and once with mescaline. Connections to the natural world and to the people I was with became strong and positive and enduring.
I think all of my experiences have helped me see connections (I can connect the dots on many levels) and to believe in the power of the mind. I am passionate about life, family, work but I am calm and know that the little things are the little things. But I was so young it could be I am who I am and these experiences had no bearing on who I am now. I don't believe that but I am open to that possibility.
I had one bad trip on acid. It was snowing so when I closed my eyes everything was white. I was bored for 6 hours. So not a horrible experience just a waste of time.
I will say that I was lucky to experience Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Uriah Heap, Ted Nugent, Jethro Tull, Bob Seger and others live on hallucinogens. And doing acid and listening to firesign theater albums was pretty cool. To this day Pink Floyd is a go to comfort band for me.
Two videos that you might like to see:
https://youtu.be/s182g4vwprA A few scientists talking about mushrooms https://youtu.be/TWnkYkKGzs8 A 61 year old mom taking muschrooms for the first time
What I experienced - the journey inside of me and back, lost of connection with all physical aspects of existence, including all senses (which is funny, because you 'see' amazing things with your whole entity, but when coming back down and slowly plugging back eyes you realize how limited and 'different' they are compared to what you just experienced, same goes for all senses but eyes are most obvious).
I could go on and on for hours how profound the experience is, it's truly some sort of 'higher' state of mind compared to daily existence, but since much more of hte brain is engaged (or with more intensity, dunno), after few hours I am extremely tired mentally, and usually strong migraine comes (that goes away over night). The breakdown of oneself into endlessly small atoms, dance of them in endless whirl of time and space, and slow reconnection bit by bit when the trip fades away (which takes at least an hour or two and is as interesting as going up). After first time experiencing it, I knew I don't have any predisposition for mental disorder, since this breakdown into flawless mist and back would reveal some inconsistencies in my persona. Or the sense of breathing - registering it, but as something very distant, not really that important, pausing it for minutes (or at least it felt like that).
Anyway, for me to get there, I always have to lie down, ideally in comfy bed, with nice quiet shamanic music in the background, curl under the blanket and cut all feed from all the senses. Other people and stimulis would be just interrupting this journey. Party would go in exact opposite direction. I also mixed shrooms with lemon juice - gives it maybe 5x intensity for given amount, and trip lasts maybe 3 hours which is plenty for life-changing experience).
Coming down is experience itself - the sense of endless inner peace and true happiness that brings smile on your face as reflection of state inside your mind, and landing back is very smooth.
It's so strong I never done it more than 1-2x per year (availability is also an issue). Didn't do it for last 5-6 years at all, but the effect will be with me forever. I don't believe in some higher forces or magical wonderland and whatnot, just that our brain can provide us with truly breathtaking experience once we alter the way it's engaged. Did try Salvia divinorum extract few times - similar effect I would say, much shorter and shallower, but same type of setting, cutting of senses and coming back scenario.
Since this is not a problem for me, you should Just Do It - that is to say, you should prepare mindfully but you shouldn't wait for some guru/ doctor/ shaman/ who's going to hold your hand and guide you through the experience etc. etc. That can be helpful but you'll get the most out of it by dealing with the existential uncertainty you'll encounter.
Whether a psychedelic experience is merely entertaining or is education or edifying is really up to the person taking it. Dismissing the experience of people who take psychedelics in other contexts than the one the speaker is most familiar with is a very common ego trap among psychedelic newbies.
While I'm open to trying psychedelics, I've seen too many bad trips to be comfortable with it.
I also knew long beforehand that subjective experience is filtered by the brain, but having that fact forcibly shown to me was a whole other ballgame. I was also much calmer and more giving afterwards. I'm not sure why - maybe spending eight hours while super high and with a diminished ego makes you want to revisit that mindset.
Long after the trip and even occasionally today, I still see patterns in trees that are very reminiscent of how they looked while tripping. This may be a bit silly, but it's a nice cautionary reminder that my brain is capable of imposing order where there is none.
Superficially, I went from hating to loving electronic music, and felt euphoria for the first time.
Are you sure what you took was actually acid?
An intense psychedelic trip could be a good shortcut though.
Why? I've done mushrooms a half dozen times (but not within the last decade or so) but it definitely doesn't rise to that level of importance.
This is supposed to be a criticism? Sounds like an endorsement to me.
Hah. I bet they figured out which pill they got, pretty quickly.
I don't like this guy. And he's the chairman of the Psychiatry department at a major hospital.
Why?
1) Psychedelic therapy is a promising treatment for mental health issues
2) Legalization of psychedelics might actually be a GOOD idea
3) The legalization of medical marijuana was a step in the RIGHT direction, toward the overdue legalization of marijuana
This guy is skeptical of #1 and seems to believe the opposite of #2 and #3. So yeah, I don't like him, and I think his beliefs are misguided and harmful.
His concerns are already on record in medical journals (sadly mostly paywalled) about using Psilocybin on cancer patients http://www.ascopost.com/issues/may-10-2015/a-cautionary-note... and it has to do with peer review. The comparison with medical marijuana is that they did not do reproduction or review on those studies and then the research was used to shove through legalized marijuana and he wants more research and review this time around before dosing patients with hallucinogens.
Probably. But then again, I cannot imagine what his concerns about marijuana are in general, since we've had studies on marijuana for 50+ years now and there's really no scientific basis for banning it or not using it for "other purposes" (besides medical), any more than there's e.g. for smoking in general.
I'm all for medical research, but using medical reasons (aka "medicalization") to legitimize psychoactive substances in general doesn't have quite the integrity I think is needed.
And to try and constrain psychoactive substances entirely to the medical sphere, as so many would like to do I think, is problematic as well.
It's how we handle all things in general. Drugs are that one weird exception (and then there are exceptions from that exception, like alcohol).
We don't ban chlorine. Or paint thinner. And, yes, we don't consume those either (although, some do sniff glue), but no reason to not having even things with "known harmful effects" be legit between adults in their own time.
What I was talking about is the sale of substances that are 1) advertised specifically for consumption, and 2) have known highly harmful effects when consumed as advertised. This is similar to regulating poisonous food. You can still buy poison and food separately, and combine them if you really want to. So this is not about possession.
For possession, I can think of only two reasons why it should ever be regulated. One is when the substance requires special handling to store safely, and can e.g. leak into the environment and affect others if handled improperly. I'm not sure if there are any drugs that are in this category. Presumably, at least some of them could be in sufficient quantities. But even then, this would be regulating safe storage, not possession per se.
The other reason is when a substance, when consumed, is likely to make the person highly dangerous to others - a hypothetical example would be a drug that reliably induces violent rage, and that has no other legitimate use (e.g. not a beneficial drug in smaller doses).
Obviously one sounds good and one sounds bad, but I wonder what study you could perform to accept hypothesis 1 but reject hypothesis 2.
One test would be whether only fear relating to one's own death is eliminated, or whether all fear is eliminated. E.g. I wouldn't expect a mother to let her children play with knives or whatever.
Also, the key mediating variable in terms of people achieving lasting peace is whether or not they have a mystical experience. And whether or not one has this qualitative experience is only loosely related to dosage, which to me makes it unlikely that some part of the brain is just getting biologically switched off or whatever.
Not really. When an antidepressant's effect wanes, most people experience severe withdrawal symptoms and side effects (e.g. hallucinations), and many patients find it impossible to cope with the withdrawal and live without the mind numbing effect.
What most antidepressants will do is actually get you to a baseline state where you're feeling numb and having a mild existence of not experiencing happiness/calm or sadness/anxiety, but in a strange/empty place between the normal ups and downs of life.
Please do not spread misinformation about potentially life-saving medication.
It's hard to believe that all the thousands of people that are prescribed antidepressants are going through severe (i.e. crippling) depression. I'm glad that you experienced only mild/no side-effects, but that it appears this is not the case with the majority of patients [1].
Someone struggling with depression/anxiety/whatever should seek treatment for the causes of their suffering, of course.
However, the common mantra is that a pill will solve your ill, the fact that antidepressants are prescribed like candy (second only to antibiotics) should hint on this. The problem is that, at best, the pill will help you with symptoms and will not solve the underlying causes (often related to trauma handling or with how one deals with the hardships of life).
[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/are-antidep... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-antidepressant... [3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-antidepressa...
What I was really focused on was psychological understanding through the use of psychedelics. They certainly helped, along with the therapy, but a more judicious use of both treatments would perhaps been more efficacious. But... the crap they kept recommending to me was Effexor and I had read far too much on how problematic it was. A milder antidepressant like Wellbutrin would have been better, but I spoke to too many idiots... From an engineer's perspective, starting out with a sledgehammer instead of seeing if the rubber mallet might work first is stupid. And being treated like I was an idiot was ... bedside manner indeed.
So you're not entirely wrong, I am remembering what was discussed in the book Talking Back to Prozac, but what you said is very simplistic. Depression is a very complex issue and the individual themselves is a significant factor. Every instance of depression has to be handled like it is an unique case, there are no blanket solutions like blindly giving everyone a drug (or a variety of drugs like lab rats...)
I think it's silly to dismiss it out of hand. Remember that the founder of the most valuable company in the world literally said that taking LSD was one of the most important experiences of his life.
1960s counterculture played a role in the personal computer revolution. Psychedelic drugs were part of that.
I would suggest you read What the Dormouse Said by John Markoff.
Drugs are a tool and it is very much a hacker thing to want to learn about these tools and how they can be best used. Any sort of "promotion" you're reacting to could also be construed of people who see value in these tools regardless of official public policy.
You don't do it, it does you, when the time comes :).
Surprisingly many people who've done psychedelics get this metaphor. This is due to the epiphany about the concept of time that is experienced by most people who have had a psychedelic trip.
But anyway, when the time comes, if you want a positive and meaningful experience, make sure you choose a positive, meaningful and safe place to do it.
At home, when alone (no parents/children/etc) is such a place. You need it clear for at least 48 hours, as you will want to spend a day integrating what you've just experienced.
It's a good idea to have a trusted good friend who will stay sober during your trip, preferably someone who has tripped before - or he can smoke some pot.
It's important that alcohol is not present - not in you or your trip sitter during the trip, as this will derail it in the wrong direction.
After the effects have subsided, you can have a beer or a glass of wine to help you sleep.
Prepare your place for the trip - make it beautiful, clean, have fruit, juices, water - you will go on a deep journey, so make sure you do it in style.
The most important - make sure that the substance is pure and is what advertised. Get a drug testing kit and verify it if you have no trusted sources (eg. if you buy from a dark net market).
It's a Swedish podcast but not that much in this episode, the interview starts 14 minutes in: https://soundcloud.com/user-659943582/david-nutt-magic-mushr...
These stories often make me think that they are merely catered to people with either "acceptable" mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) or people who have no mental illness. Anyone else may as well not exist in this worldview.
On another note, I find it quite amusing to read the HN stories here of how their experiences went with psychadelics. The descriptions presented seem understandable to me and I feel I've experienced such things in my day-to-day existence. I'm not quite sure how they are profound, nor how they make someone more open-minded, intelligent, etc.
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff...
Spotify playlist can be found here: https://play.spotify.com/user/phillysblunt/playlist/5KWf8H2p...
or here http://www.cupblog.org/?p=18136
But I don't know if this one, they have used something like this in other studies.
edit: Since they mentioned Eno it' might be a different one but I don't know: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-to-pick-music-for-peop... something like this and maybe there it can be found if you search what's related to this on reddit. J.H.U might be the sacred knowledge one.
"N.Y.U. leaned toward New Age and world music — Brian Eno; sitars; didgeridoos. Johns Hopkins favored Western classical."
https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/magic-mushrooms-in-mexi...
I guess nobody had a bad trip?
(Obviously I'm not counting extremes like dosing someone and throwing them into a haunted house. That would be a bad trip.)
I recently had one of my friends -- a relatively experienced psychedelic user -- dive out of a window because he thought the world was going to end. Among other things this resulted in my friend barely escaping death by hemorrhage (I called emergency services, he was hospitalized), an uncomfortable police encounter, quite a few articles of clothing lost due to being soaked in blood, and some unsavory legal consequences for my friend. Not to mention a rather scarring mental experience for myself.
Set was good, setting was good, substance was known good. I had absolutely no reason to suspect anything going wrong. But it did go wrong.
Even if you know what you are doing and are experienced, it is always possible for bad things to happen. Getting cocky and saying there are no such things as bad trips is an invitation for trouble.
I think a lot of people could benefit deeply from responsibly using psychedelics, but they're not always the answer. They're powerful tools with great potential for good and great potential for harm. When or whether to take psychedelics is a very personal decision; our psychological landscapes can be very difficult to map out even from the inside. Part of being responsible about psychedelics is not making blind judgments of what other people should do with their minds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08...
Salvia?
That said, I learned a lot from them. In fact, I'd say that I learned a lot more from my bad trips than from my good trips, and found the bad trips much more valuable and profound.
They helped me face a lot of things I didn't want to acknowledge or didn't realize in my ordinary life. They were, as they say, years of therapy condensed in to hours.
My bad trips also made me feel great respect for these substances, and made me very wary of casual use. I also believe you should always have an experienced sitter whom you like and trust.
I can't find it now, but there's an interview with Erik Davis where he tells a story of how Terrence McKenna had turned someone on. Afterwards, that person screams at McKenna: "What did you do to me? How could you! It was so..."
So McKenna asks him: "But would you do it again?"
"Why? Because what does not kill you makes you stronger?"
"No," McKenna replied, "It is what kills you that makes you stronger."
edit: in the interest of not misrepresenting hallucinogens, I wanted to clarify a few things. First, this was on LSD, and not mushrooms. I have never had a bad trip on mushrooms, whereas I always felt more out of control on LSD. Also, I've tripped dozens of times, and every other trip was either very positive or at least could be laughed at afterward. And overall I've gained more than I've lost by a long shot. My main point is that hellish psychotic breaks are indeed possible, but not the norm. The one time I did experience this, I was not following the guidelines of experienced trippers, which is to make sure your set and setting are good. My (mind)set was horrible, taking several other drugs in the same evening, and the setting was a shitty vegas hotel.
If you go in with a positive, respectful mindset, surrounded by supportive people in a good environment, the chances are almost nil that you will have a bad trip.
You can put it in whatever context you want, and for the most part I agree, but I myself have had what I would definitely describe as a "bad trip". It resulted in me having to deal with anxiety and panic attacks for the next 4+ years. I also personally know people who have had what could only be described as "bad trips" including one instance of police being called to the house and one instance of someone jumping out a window.
I know it is important to take every experience as a learning opportunity, but there are some people who physiologically have bad reactions to hallucinogens and those who are susceptible to mental disorders. Saying that "there are really no such things as bad trips" is really downplaying how powerful these substances can be.
I am in favor of legalization for many drugs, and bad trips can be minimized by attention to set, setting, dosage, and purity (I suspect quality control at my friend's bakery was shit and she got way too much of something or other). But the notion that bad trips are anti-drug propaganda and recreational drugs are perfectly safe is dangerous and hurts people.
The quality control may not have been to blame. I've smoked cannabis for many years, and know many people that do. I used to think as many do that these stories of mental breakdowns/freakouts were just anti-drug propaganda. Then one day a friend brought his coworker (whom I had never met) to visit. We smoked one joint between the three of us, it was not particularly strong. But the guy just went nuts. Talking nonsense that was obviously part of some paranoid thoughts he was having. Me and my friend spent the rest of the evening calming him down and by the end he had mostly returned to normal.
It's clear to me this guy had some underlying psychological issues that were triggered by cannabis. But it only took a very small amount to trigger that episode.
As my friend told me, he just stopped showing up for work after that and after a couple of months was let go. I don't know where he is today but I hope he recovered and realised that cannabis is something that he really should not touch again.
But again, this is one person out of dozens of people I've smoked with over the years. It's uncommon, but can be quite serious for those afflicted.
Enough 'pot cookie' stories and maybe society will start really wising up as to what we're dealing with.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they did and are still doing.
For the record, I think they're completely wrong, even after my friend's experience (and she agrees). People are going to seek out drugs no matter what. The best ways to protect them from the very real dangers are well-regulated legalization and honest education, not wild-eyed fear-mongering and brutal prison sentences.
https://deadspin.com/5549389/mushroom-tea-murder-man-removes...
The idea is that there's always something to learn, even if it might not be pleasant. And to not scare people away with 'bad' nomenclature.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-u...