Hacker News Reader

As you say, there are risks and benefits. "How" matters a lot.

I think you exaggerate though. A lot of the risk is down to extremely irresponsible use... many steps removed from the high level of medical supervision you laid out.

The basics are some mental preparation, a trip sitter, correct dosage and a proper set. I don't consider psychologists the only or necessarily best guides.

Like all drugs (including alcohol), they can interact with preexisting susceptibilities to mental illness. Being an experience, it can also cause trauma. So can non drug experiences, like rock climbing. Dosage, set, setting & preparation mitigate these a lot.

Psychedelics are not a danger free activity, but like most dangerous activities most of the irl dangers are from ignoring safety entirety. FWIW, I think the more normalised, discussed and non judgemental psychodelic drug culture becomes, the more responsible users tend to be.

..And for comparison, it's a lot safer than many sports and hobbies.

> Like all drugs (including alcohol), they can interact with [...]

Interesting aside, some mushrooms contain the mycotoxin coprine. Coprine is normally harmless but can make you quite ill if combined with alcohol. Common ink caps are generally considered edible but contain this toxin. This toxin can be used to treat alcoholism and a similar substance (disulfiram) has been approved by the FDA for this purpose.

> it's a lot safer than many sports and hobbies.

What is the basis for this claim? How do we measure mental injury? What quantities are we talking about?

Is the only allowable statement one that can be backed by quantifiable analysis?

I didn't even specify which hobby, so lets go with alpine mountaineering. Hard to be more dangerous than this. Gridiron football has some good quantification, with ways of measuring mental injuries.

sheesh.

I certainly had no intention of precluding non-quantifiable basis for the claim. I had no idea what basis you were basing your claim on. Beyond that I really couldn't begin to imagine how the attributes of the bases might be compared to one another.

In different words I asked because sports and hobbies seem like apples to the oranges of psychedelic experiences. In that context I wondered how one would build the basis for comparison, not to mention generate the confidence to make such a bold assertion about the end result.

It would probably be easier to say that the inferential distance was too high for me to follow and I was curious about how you got there.

> As ACMD chairman Nutt repeatedly clashed with government ministers over issues of drug harm and classification. In January 2009 he published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology an editorial ("Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms") in which the risks associated with horse riding (1 serious adverse event every ~350 exposures) were compared to those of taking ecstasy (1 serious adverse event every ~10,000 exposures).

> In 2012, he explained to the UK Home Affairs Committee that he chose riding as the "pseudo-drug" in his comparison after being consulted by a patient with irreversible brain damage caused by a fall from a horse. He discovered that riding was "considerably more dangerous than [he] had thought ... popular but dangerous" and "something ... that young people do".

Brain injuries in American football over the past decade probably show that to be an even more dangerous sport, but I haven’t run the numbers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#%22Equasy%22

The ‘more of what you already are’ idea seems very reductionist and unhelpful to me.

There are definitely real risks that need to be made known around pre existing mental conditions and psychedelic use. Those are appreciated.

But your thesis suggests that transformative experiences are unlikely to happen which from personal experience I can say is false. The impact of a breakthrough psychedelic experience can be profoundly positive especially for those starting from a less enlightened place.

BUT everyone knows that guy who has the “I’m Jesus” moment instead of “we’re all Jesus” and it’s usually easy to see it coming in retrospect.

> transformative experiences are unlikely to happen which from personal experience I can say is false. The impact of a breakthrough psychedelic experience can be profoundly positive especially for those starting from a less enlightened place.

I don’t think they are downplaying the transformative potential, but saying that you don’t get to choose what you transform to. Increase in neuroticism is also a type of transformation that occurs with psychedelics that seems to be downplayed or exclusively attributed to set and setting.

Anything that gets you out of your default mode network and amplifies your brain activity non-selectively will indeed be that “more of you” as OP claims, and where you land or how much of that experience you can integrate heavily depends on your original psychological organization.

“This isn’t something you can do on your own”

I’m gonna have to push back here. Go rent a cabin in the woods and eat some mushrooms and I guarantee you can work thru issues on your own.

I used to think like that, then I met someone who's best friend committed suicide while under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms. Psychedelics are powerful, and it is irresponsible to suggest, let alone guarantee, that they will benefit everyone.

I met someone who's best friend committed suicide while sober. Those stories of suicide on psychs usually turn out to be fabrications, exaggerations or miscalculated cause and effect.

Most of the suicides I know of happened because of booze. And the drug is available for mass purchase at the store down the block...

I think one of the biggest fallacies is that alcohol "shows who the person really is".

It definitely loosens you up, to a point. Maybe 3-8 drinks in it is definitely closer to "the true self".

But in large amounts it definitely creates an over-emotional person. In it's own way it creates emotional reaction spirals that could cause suicide, or lashing out at people, irrational love or hatred of self, etc.

Like i said, biggest fallacy.

> Maybe 3-8 drinks in it is definitely closer to "the true self".

3-8? 8 drinks in and I'd be passed out on the floor.

Well they did say 3-8. A petite short person won't be able to drink as much as a tall heavy person, all else being equal.

Tbh one or two beers is all I drink these days, but six or seven is what it takes for me to be 'properly drunk' (which I don't enjoy.)

Agree w/the other poster. It really can depend on the person. And not everyone has the self-awareness / background knowledge to prepare themselves well.

Not unlike how some people don't handle alcohol well.

Once or twice seen folks in bad places on mushrooms.

Because of the shift in perspective caused by psychedelics, I think beginning, if nothing else, with a friend is a very, very good idea. Plus the benefit of an informed outside perspective is one of the pluses of therapy.

> Especially when "bad" people take them they just become even more of an asshole, or dare I say when stupid people take them they just revel in the intoxication

How terribly narrow minded this statement is when faced with the complexity of the experience.

And to state the obvious -- "bad" people are often victims of trauma, and working with these substances in a directed way can get to the root of these traumas in a way that frees the person from said trauma. It's a process that doesn't happen overnight, but sometimes it does, and miraculously so.

> working with these substances in a directed way can get to the root of these traumas in a way that frees the person from said trauma

I believe this to be true, but op has a valid point. Many people take these drugs for purely recreational reasons, in uncontrolled settings, with no intention of seeking a transformative experience. They are "reveling in the intoxication", although I don't think that necessarily makes them stupid.

> The problem with psychedelics is they only make you "more" of what you are

And when you're ready to surrender your ego for a while, and realize that 'what you are' is star stuff, the experience is amazing. I agree with your sentiment, and set and setting are very important. I know people who prepare for months before they trip, making sure nobody's going to be calling their phone, curating the right music to listen to, maybe attending some art exhibitions beforehand, etc

So what about all the bad people becoming peaceful after a weekend with some mushrooms/ayahuasca/san pedro? Are we just going ignore people who had a complete personality flip?

Although.. some truth lies here. These plants and experiences can help attune you to your real nature. In your heart you might be softy, but a meanie in usual life. The plants can maybe help you express your softy side better and become more attuned to that nature, until it is your dominant expression. Which means the person might have had a false meanie personality expression for some reason (coping/defence mechanisms to trauma/abuse/hard life).

I think maybe the whole point to these plants/experiences are to teach us it is impossible to get clear cut black/white answers that our brains so easily digest and accept. It might help us accept that we won't have good answers for certain things and to accept certain things for what they are (broken family, disability etc).

I like the word "attune" when it comes to this stuff. I feel that we have an internal nature/essence that wants to be expressed. We can attune our minds to resonate or be on the same channel as the inner state (or soul or god being or whatever you want to call it). The first thing I like to do when relaxing (without any substances (or with them)) is to try and shake off my personality and step into the attuned state - step into the shoes of the inner child/being and feel it's energy, and try and have a conversation with it, ask it how it is, does it need anything, is it happy, and tell it that you love it with all your heart and thank it for giving you energy and love. In that moment I/you can become fully attuned with it and feel your power and creativity as cosmic being. While you are at it, imagine you and this being are made of light and that you are travelling through the cosmos together at light speed, that you feel the energy/intent of the universe flowing over and into you and it makes you happy. While sitting, raise your hand and feel the cosmic wind through your fingers and feel them grasp through the fabric of reality...

Sounds silly, I know. But do it the next time while under the influence, and see what you feel. It might change your life to commune with your inner being.

fyi I'm not relgious, it's just fun thought experiments that might feel nice.

I hope more people read what you wrote. While I do think some people actually can do this on their own, everyone is different. When people have profoundly positive experiences on psilocybin or other substances, it can be tempting to feel they've tapped into some kind of universal truth and they naturally want to share that with others. Psychedelics affect people differently at different times and it's certainly not always a beautiful trip into cosmic consciousness and love - even at low doses. It's cliche, but set and setting matter, especially to measure any kind of clinical benefits.

The article above is discussing psilocybin not LSD. Those are two completely different substances with different effects.

I highly recommend you read Michael Pollan's book "How to Chnage Your Mind" if you wish to become informed on the use and effects of psilocybin along with other psychoactive compuonds.

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

While your post has some truth I have to reject your general premise that an individual can't derive any value without some sort of formalized framework. It's simply not true.

The parallel I was making in my mind was sex. There are all kind of risks and corresponding safety measures, preparations... you can write a comment like the gp without changing too much.

So many times it happens in suboptimal conditions, specially the glorified first times.

And is that bad? Sex is a natural process, just like taking psychedelics. We don't need to regulate or control sex beyond some very simple ground rules (age limits), so why do we have to regulate or control psychedelic use?

Just like sex, taking psychedelics is a (mostly) safe, natural process, with an important effect on the individual's maturation.

Bad? I'm all for sex, but STDs and unwanted pregnancy are very real. The perfect regulation is unrealistic, if at all desirable (it is for therapy), it just happens because humans want what we want.

> Especially when "bad" people take them they just become even more of an asshole

Is this true? I have not partaken, but everything I have read is that people see the interconnection and interrelatedness of all things, which would seem to cause a “bad person” to become less of an asshole. Am I wrong on this?

Personally, I have never seen a person become a worse person after a psychedelic trip, and I've been around this a lot. I have seen many selfish and hateful people seeing outside their perceptions for the first time and finally realizing that they are a human just like everyone else, not some perfect saint free of flaws, or whatever else they had concocted in their head through the lens societal norms.

There are people, particularly among the younger, that take the drugs to "get f'd up". And I've seen those people have great times and come back more grounded and with more respect for reality, and I've seen those people have horrific experiences, in which their ego's are stripped and they are forced to see the impact their behavior has on the whole. Those experiences usually affect for much longer and are more immediately negative. But from what I've seen of those, the people who change most for the better are the ones that have the most to change, and the one's that have the most to change usually have the more intense/difficult realizations. There are such things as bad trips and there are people that come out worse, I won't deny that. But what I've seen is that the difficult experiences end up being the most valuable. It usually hurts to realise your whole life has been meaningless chasing of someone else's dream, or that you've been an asshole to everyone and making the world a worse place. But you can't intentionally change what you don't know exists.

It can go both ways. Some people watch their memories and realize they’re not the hero of the story, not even the villain, but just a jerk. And some people come back even more full of themselves. They’re so proud of this amazing thing they did and how amazing it makes them.

> old research literature on LSD like stuff from James Fadiman

True, much of the research before we knew about set and setting approached the substances as psycho-mimetic, or substances that induce psychosis.

Aldous Huxley described them as the "gates to heaven and hell".

> The problem with psychedelics is they only make you "more" of what you are.

I think that's oversimplifying, the drug is a serotonin agonist, it tends to have some pretty predictable results. For example a large number of trips go in the general direction of "love is all we need"(Sam Harris, Waking Up).

> nobody talks about the very real possibility of having PTSD flashbacks

There are risks of bad experiences for sure, yet there are benefits for many people too. At the end of the day, "controlled substance which can be used under supervision" is not a bad place to be. Michael Pollan points out that psilocybin was highly ritualized in the cultures which used them, they were sacred and non-recreational.

>The problem with psychedelics is they only make you "more" of what you are.

I've personally seen redirection, or orienting toward one's best self, more often than simply 'amplification of who you already are'.

> The problem with psychedelics is they only make you "more" of what you are.

Not sure about "only" but I do think it's a valid thing to be aware of. It's only one half of the classical "set and setting" and the latter is really key. Are you doing it alone / who are you doing it with?

> these are extremely dangerous substances that can cause trauma and other serious psychological problems if not used extremely specifically and carefully

Don't know about this one either. I think it's certainly true that it can trigger latent trauma that hasn't been dealt with. But that's by no means a guarantee.

My take with this sort of stuff is that it's not really healthy to have an absolutist prohibitionist approach nor a free for all. I think the right approach is for interested parties to gently ramp up in the setting of an experienced sitter who can help reorient them.

> This isn't something you can do on your own.

This is probably the only part of your statement I'd categorically disagree with. Again, depends on the person, the set and the setting. Highly situational. Don't know if it's helpful to try and oversimplify this kind of thing.

The only idea conveyed in your message that has any factual basis is that psychedelics should be taken with a lot of care, preparation, and consideration, including pre existing susceptibilities.

Everything else you said builds on top of this idea as if they are also fact based, but they are not. Let’s not make the social acceptance of psychedelics even harder than they already have been made to be.

You have noticed something very interesting about the nature of human consciousness and the way it conceptualizes the world, and the events, ideas, people, etc within it. Other examples of this phenomenon can be observed in this thread, and all other threads on any topic.

I propose that this phenomenon can be productively explored and ~understood with the usage of psychedelics if one goes in with this specific intention.

Have you ever taken psychedelics?

I've paid attention over the last few years to what is being said about psilocybin in pop media. It seems that the problem isn't as you said but rather that it isn't being used in a clinical setting with a qualified therapist where a patient under the influence may break through barriers preventing recovery.

Yes, psychidelics are more dangerous than alcohol. /s