Tiny doses of magic mushrooms can boost your problem-solving skills | Hacker News Reader

Tiny doses of magic mushrooms can boost your problem-solving skills

mirror.co.uk

40 pointseplanit31 comments

Link to the full study: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/08/08/384412

I have not read it completely yet, but it seems it lacks any sort of blind trial and control group; hence, it fails to account for placebo effect. Given the nature of the experiment, I believe placebo effect could have significantly altered the results.

Yeah, no blinding, no placebo, in the field, small sample size and at a drug related event.

At best, this falls into the "quite interesting should probably do a proper follow up" pile.

One interesting line from the study. It says "that we did not use a control group (for obvious ethical and practical reasons)". Practical I get, there were only 38 of them in total. But ethical? What are the ethical concerns with not giving people a micro dose of hallucinogenic truffles?

The control, in this case, might be giving people micro doses without telling them.

A properly designed experiment would be to tell everyone that you might give them the drug, and actually give it to half of them. The control would be the group of people that did not receive it. GP is right that there is no ethical issue.

You mean small amounts of psychedelics open you up to new perspectives on things?!?!? Shocking. Bet nobody ever figured that one out before now.

Its The Mirror, this is pretty groundbreaking for them and their audience.

Amount of people who would truly benefit from microdosing psilocybin: not a lot

Amount of people who will share clickbait pop science article and use it to justify a stoner vice: a lot

The high I felt from taking shrooms was the same high I felt from cannabis. Quite a disappointment, after all the build up and great expectations.

I think your experience is highly atypical. Have you tried any other psychedelics? Or maybe your dose was too small? There are different kinds of mushrooms, but typically, a dose of 1/8 oz to 1/4 oz should be sufficient for a quite mind-expanding experience.

You either have access to amazing weed or crappy mushrooms.

Why not both?

lol no. you simply dont know what you are doing

That is definitely not typical.

Eating truffles in Amsterdam, for example, leaves me laying on the bed seeing shapes and patterns for a while. I find myself extremely entertaining. A little bit of shrooms leaves me happy with a body buzz and a little lazy. It is more like I'm heavily stoned, enough so that I'm assuming your dose was too low based on your description.

If you are interested, I honestly suggest taking a vacation to a place with some legality (Amsterdam, for example), and eating a package of them. Have a friend with you. Wait a few hours before leaving your hotel room. If the response is different, you'll know it was your dose. If you simply don't actually "trip", you have an atypical response.

Have you tried micro-dosing psilocybin or LSD? Or even regular dosing?

I suspect you are speaking from a highly uninformed perspective.

Microdosing is a joke and true drug abuse. Taking a psychedelic drug so you can be a better worker. That's the spiritual equivalent of prostitution.

How so?

People drink coffee every morning to be more alert at their jobs, and I fail to see how this is different.

Coffee exists to make people alert.

Psychedelics exist for spiritual introspection, discovery and healing. To use these in furtherance of creating a work product for the purpose of enriching others is a bastardization of function. I find it morally abhorrent.

This isn't really new research its discussed in the Psychedelic Explorers Guide.

http://www.psychedelicexplorersguide.com/

(I see the account has been suspended for the micro dosing site linked from the main page).

Unrelated, but sites like these always temper the excitement for me about psychedelics. If psychedelics could really revolutionize human consciousness and open new frontiers, you would think they would be able to make a less crackpot looking site. Same with Terrance Mackena. All these people who preach psychedelics don't end up accomplishing much besides writing profusely about psychedelics. However on the other hand we have Cricks and DNA and LSD so who knows.

Likely a confirmation bias (?) - the people who spend the most time raving about psychedelics probably don't spend much time on other projects. The users working on other projects don't spend a lot of time advocating for psychedelics.

> If psychedelics could really revolutionize human consciousness and open new frontiers,

Psychedelics are not magic. They typically trigger serotonin receptors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_drug

This might be useful for interventions by medical experts. Like narcotics are useful for surgical interventions or antibiotics are useful against bacteria infections.

https://www.livescience.com/16287-mushrooms-alter-personalit...

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-ps...

DO NOT use psychedelics to solve your problems or when you are in a bad mood. You risk a bad trip causing PTSD and panic disorder or worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_trip

https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/36gj2h/can_ptsd_be_c...

https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Set_and_setting#Mental_State

I would agree that you probably don't want to do psychedelics when severely depressed. But they can be quite helpful if you feel you're in a "rut" that you feel like you can't get out of.

I am no friend of drugs in general and psychedelics in particular.

It might work to get out of a rut but, IMO, the risks (what dosage?) are not worth it. Certainly not without professional assistance (not a shaman). The new rut might be much worse than the old rut.

Also: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/charting-the-depths/...

IMO no problem is solved by psychedelics. Unless you sell them to solve your money problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apkbMtkwU2g

There are no risks from occasional use of psychedelics. There's tons of evidence (anecdotal and published) that psychedelics can be extremely helpful.

I hate to say this, but I think you can't really speak coherently about psychedelics unless you have personal, first-hand experience.

Yes, there is evidence that psychedelics can be useful. I agree that they can be useful to give a different perspective to quit a rut, as you wrote.

Still, according to experts and many anecdotes on reddit, psychedelics are very risky (unwanted bad effects) and not safe drugs and not miracle drugs.

The risk of bad short term and long term effects depends highly on the dosage and the personal mindset and the current environment. Nobody knows in advance how your brain will react.

https://www.reddit.com/r/drugs

https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychedelics

Elon Musk is a psychedelics user. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates used LSD when they were younger. It’s not really a psychedelic, but I’ve always enjoyed the fact that Thomas Edison loved his cocaine wine.

Unrelated aside: I hadn't heard of the Crick + LSD thing yet, so I looked into it. Wikipedia quotes this article, saying it's likely a false rumor: http://realitysandwich.com/314873/francis-crick-dna-lsd/

>Same with Terrance Mackena. All these people who preach psychedelics don't end up accomplishing much besides writing profusely about psychedelics.

As far as Terrence McKenna is concerned, I think the man accomplished a little more than writing profusely about psychedelics. He was a brilliant lecturer. There are probably 100+ of his talks available on YouTube. The topics of those talks often go far beyond mere rambling about psychedelics.

You’re talking about professional psychedelic enthusiasts, for the most part. There are many people who have used psychedelics to improve their lives in big ways and small who simply don’t talk about it — because it’s illegal and because there’s a stigma attached to it.

LSD and ecstasy had a profound impact on me to such an extent that I can’t even imagine what my life would be like today without the experiences. I’m almost certain I’d be a less happy, less successful person.

But I’m not exactly going to have a casual conversation about it with someone that I don’t know very well.

Side-effects may include finding yourself in a gas-station bathroom at dawn, crouched in the fetal position, muttering about "making the world a better place".

When you realize that all the third party tracking scripts you pasted onto your page are _watching you too_.

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