Psilocybin repairs 'brains cells damaged by depression' in mice: study
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After one hour of crying I started noticing the magical effects of "we're all connected" etc. So after the bad part of my trip, the amazing things came. I don't mind that I cried, but I do mind that I was acting on a suicidal tendency that I never experienced sober.
I think I overdosed on it, being quite an inexperienced user. Because the first time I took half a dose, that was an amazing experience and it allowed me to reconnect to true child-like wonder (measured in units of whatever the smart shops in Amsterdam sell).
N = 1, I know.
All I'm saying is: be careful, have a trip sitter and a good set and setting. Don't go all out simply because you see a few positive papers.
Anyone know if dose needs to be scaled with body weight?
Bad experience: a whole one
Smart shops in Amsterdam have a pretty standardized dose that they sell. I forgot the actual amount of grams.
They should always recommend beginner, if you haven't had experience with truffles before.
1/4-1/2g: microdose. You should still be able to function pretty normally on this.
1.0-1.5g: Recreational dose, lasting a couple of hours.
2.0-3.5g: Deep trip, lasting 3-6 hours.
4-5g+: Hero dose. Not recommended for beginners.
My first dose was 3.0g (cubensis) and it was great. I don't really see the point on microdosing and I see mushrooms as more medicine than a recreational drug. I usually take 3.5g as they're typically sold as 7g (1/4oz), which is 2 doses.
If only Psilocybin was available as a substance so we could just measure μg directly.
When you buy dried shrooms, it's not easy to tell what one fruit is because they shrivel up and break easily. Some sellers break them up deliberately - if some fruits are more potent than others, then by mixing them, the total psilocybin content is more likely to be similar in every package they sell.
Interestingly, some vendors sell "mushroom pills" and "mushroom chocolate bars," where they do this on a bigger scale - mill the mushrooms down into powder form and then thoroughly mix the powder to give an even distribution. The idea then is that each piece of chocolate in the bar contains the same amount of psilocybin - and with some trial and error taste testing, they can recommend how many pieces of chocolate to have for the desired effect. This also doesn't give you the same nausea you typically get by eating the dried mushrooms directly, which might give you a better trip.
I've had 7g myself and yeah, I wouldn't recommend it. 3.5g is enough.
Wouldn't the solution rather be for Amsterdam to create a "newbie coffee shops" or something similar?
1. Create safe newbie-friendly places that provide an opportunity to safely experience a legal drug X.
2. Mandate that for a foreigner to buy a legal drug X, they must have an ID-like document that says they are experienced with X.
3. Once a tourist experiences X in a newbie-friendly place, they award him/her with an ID-like document that enables the tourist to buy X on their own.
Surely that create more jobs and opportunities in Amsterdam than the "bug off!" rhetoric I've seen from the local Amsterdam government.
He did it in the south of The Netherlands.
Then why didn't alcohol, which causes way more problems than mushrooms, also get banned?
Downvoters and skeptics: You do realize that alcohol is involved in countless suicides, homicides, and other violence (not to mention the ravages of alcoholism), don't you?
It's the worst substance of the two, by far.
Amsterdam is one of the drinking capitals of Europe. Way more touists come to Amsterdam to get drunk than ever have to eat mushrooms, and they've always caused way more problems. But alcohol will never be banned there. Why the double standard?
You can ban them, but your ban won't be any more effective than the ban on alcohol.
It's easy to get pretty much any drug you want.. especially in Amsterdam.
All the ban does is moves the market underground, gets organized crime involved, makes it much harder for users to tell they're getting what they paid for (possibly leading to all sorts of adverse effects like overdoses), and ruins people's lives when they're thrown in jail.
We know drug bans don't work and are counterproductive.
It's sad to see the Netherlands buy in to anti-drug hysteria after being one of the leading lights in constructive drug policy and harm-reduction for so long.
Some species like Psilocybe semilanceata grow in the wild, both in Europe and North America. You can just pick them if you know the type of habbitats to look for.
You can buy grow kits semi-legally (grey area, might vary on where you live) and you don't need any extra equipment. You get a plastic box and you literally just add water.
If you want to save money, you can buy only the spores. Then you just need some substrate which you can buy either at garden supply store or at a supermarket. Biggest issue is ensuring sterility, so a pressure cooker is recommended, but there are ways around that.
I'd say it's easier to grow shrooms at home than it is to make alcohol. You don't need any specific equiment like a still for distilled drinks, and you don't need any trial and error like you do when making fermented drinks. I know you could make alcohol without any equipment, but the end result will probably be quite poor. Meanwhile the shrooms grown without any equipment will be the same as any.
There was an interesting study released in 2010 which attempted to measure the total cost, beyond just health harm, of different drugs. https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lanc...
The UK government did not like that study, because it showed that many illegal drugs were ultimately much less overall harm to society (the direct users as well as those around them and the healthcare system) than alcohol.
The takeway was that alcohol was one of the worst, along with crack cocaine and heroin; ecstacy was really not bad, and weed was a bit worse but still nowhere near as overall costly/damaging as alcohol.
Here was my thought process:
First time: I did half, that went amazingly well
Second time: I did a full dose, and I had the suicidal bad trip experience
Third time: full dose, got into a bad trip state again (just bad trip). I recognized the experience and knew what would happen, how to deal with it. It was completely fine. It was a wonderful experience.
Fourth time: potential explosive dangerous situation with the other person who used it (also did it 4 times, 4th time together with me as well). Crisis averted, having a tripsitter in this case (like in the second case) was an absolute must.
These experiences has happened in a span of 3 years, spread out quite evenly. I took it because of the research on psilocybin.
Truffles has been my first psychedelic. Ultimately, for me it has had positive effects.
It is what it is. Be careful, have a tripsitter. Not having a tripsitter was the biggest mistake I've made.
Agreed.
1. Do not take too much. This cannot be overstated. You don’t need to take 4 tabs of LSD, you don’t need to take a 1/4 oz of shrooms. Take the right, safe amount. Usually 1 tab or a 1/16th oz will do for me. Double that if I’m feeling up to it. I’m a larger person too.
2. Set/setting. Are you emotionally and physically prepared to go on a trip that could get _very_ complicated? Lots of people think they are when they're not.
Trip sitters can be helpful, but they do not guarantee a good trip by any means. Sometimes a person being around you that isn’t on the same plane of existence can make a situation needlessly uncomfortable. I’ve had a moment where we had to ask a trip sitter to leave mid-trip when things went sour. Once he left, we felt we could deal with things more naturally.
If it’s one of your first few times, a trip sitter could be great. Make sure it’s someone everyone in the group deeply trusts and likes. I’ve found I have better experiences without them personally.
Your words are kind of like telling young folks not to go and buy alcohol without knowing how to deal with it. The only way to learn is to take them.
No. But you can walk in to the forest and pick them.
You really do need to identify them properly, though, and not just pick random mushrooms.
For help in doing that I can highly recommend Alan Rockefeller's excellent videos on psilocybin mushroom identification: [1] [2]
Another option is getting mushroom spores (which are legal in most states in the US) and growing them yourself.[3][4]
There are also various other legal psychedelics, like morning glory seeds[5], hawaiian baby woodrose seeds, and salvia divinorum[6].
Some sorts of breathwork (like holotropic breathing) is actually effective at inducing altered states of consciousness comparable for some people to psychedelics. It's not clear how safe such breathwork is long-term, as not enough serious studies of it has been done, but at least breathing is perfectly legal everywhere.. last I checked.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInqVRRva7M
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs
[3] - https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/
[4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gJTeTT-pE
[5] - https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory.shtml
And again, lots of folks don't have the luxury of growing. Just because there are other "legal" options doesn't mean much: These are going to act differently than what you get in Amsterdam.
I have no doubt that breathwork can make altered states, but I very highly doubt it is comparable to drugs. And again, this isn't really going to prepare you for, say, truffles in Amsterdam. If you don't like breathwork, you can just stop and do something else. If you don't like where you are at on drugs, you just have to wait.
I was super skeptical myself.. so much so that even though I'd heard of holotropic breathwork at least a couple of decades ago I didn't bother to try it because it just sounded like complete bullshit.
But I did eventually try it, about a year ago, and I was amazed that it did in fact induce a state that was comparable to at least a low dose of psychedelics. Some people have reported even more powerful effects.
I aborted my self-experimentation out of concern that it might cause long-term health effects (as, paradoxically, hyperventilation -- which is what holotorpic breathwork mostly consists of -- can cause oxygen deprivation to the brain) but at least now, one year later, I haven't experienced any adverse health effects that I can detect, so might give it another try.
The really long-term effects (like 10 or 20 years later) are still unknown, though, as there just haven't been any serious long-term studies of it.
Another interesting possibility (which is again, mostly unstudied by science yet) is combining breathwork with other means of inducing altered states of consciousness.
Drugs aren’t really my thing, I’m more of a beer guy, but the first time I was in Amsterdam I experimented with edibles.
The first couple of times was just kind of nice, chilled me out, had a good vibe etc.
Then I got some from a different shop, and it was a nightmare! Headaches, heart racing, hallucinations, and it hurt to open my eyes. I thought my heart was going to explode.
To make matters worse I was sharing a tiny Air BnB (one room basically) with two other friends and there was nowhere to go, so I was just curled up in a ball tripping out while they drank and played cards, for hours!
Just horrendous lol, agree with the other commenters that there needs to be a safe way to try stuff like this out with people who know how to deal with somebody having a bad trip (as opposed to pointing and laughing, as my friends did).
You overdosed. Fortunately, the effect of overdosing on cannabis is purely psychological. You may feel miserable and be super paranoid, but there aren't any actual adverse physical effects.
Under such circumstances, if one is 100% sure only cannabis has been ingested and nothing else, and when there really are no adverse physical effects one could reassure the tripper that everything is going to be ok.
Hugs might be welcome, as might other physical contact like holding hands. Try changing the environment to somewhere more pleasant and more peaceful. Going out from a crowded party to peaceful nature might be a good idea. Changing music or putting on more pleasant music might help, as can looking at books of beautiful art or other fascinating images.
Something else that can be really good is having the tripper play a simple physical, acoustic instrument like a drum or a guitar, or to dance, chant or sing. This is an under-utilized and underappreciated technique that can dramatically change the mood as the tripper expresses themselves on a more primal level than speech.
Finally, in difficult trips (whether on cannabis or any other psychedelic) sometimes the best thing to do is not to try to run away but to go towards the difficulty and face it and try to learn from it. What exactly is it that you really fear? Why? Can you embrace it and surrender? Very often doing so will lead to a complete transformation of the experience from one of existential dread to bliss as one "dies" and is reborn.
Did you have a good set and setting when you took them?
Back then I didn't mix drugs.
Now I sometimes mix alcohol with weed in certain social situations (don't do it, this is a personal failing on my side).
Your curiosity was part of your set (or mindset), but it's still not clear what the setting was (ie. where you did it).
On the subject of mindset only, it definitely helps to make it as positive as possible (same with setting too, by the way). A neutral mindset could easily get to a negative mindset once you start tripping.. it's harder for that to happen if you have a very positive mindset.
It's also good to have an experienced trip sitter you trust and like, to have constructive intentions for the trip, and to prepare in other ways (such as being in a comfortable, safe, and familiar environment at a time when you don't have any responsibilities to do anything else than enjoy yourself and don't have to deal with any people you aren't extremely comfortable around).
Some other things that can help a lot are to have a good playlist of music to listen to (see the Johns Hopkins Psilocybin playlist[1] for a good example).
Other props that have been successfully used to guide trips in a constructive direction were photographs of loved ones to look at during the trip, and a rose to look at towards the end of the trip.
The time you trip can also influence how it goes. Some people like to time it so that they get to see the sunrise towards the end. Others prefer to trip during the day. Tripping in nature can be very nice..
In modern therapeutic contexts, the trip is done in a comfortable apartment with pleasing decorations, with a mask you put over your eyes to shut out the light and headphones with a carefully curated playlist (so you can go deep inside), and a therapist at your side.
This is a far cry from how most people trip recreationally, where they might be in a party, club, or festival among people they don't know with music they can't control or just out in the streets. That can be a recipe for disaster.
[1] - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/inside-the-joh...
I've benefitted greatly from a handful of psilocybin experiences in my life. The experiences were marked by long periods of profound terror and deep sadness, but I consider these to be powerful literalizations of anxieties, fears and attachments that helped me grapple with them in new ways. That said, I've glanced at scary thoughts that don't occur to me in daily life and came close to getting in trouble when I ran outside. Get a good babysitter - even better, track down a professional.
It would be great to know more about how to make this happen
If psilocybin is legalized I feel that the responsible thing to do is to restrict its usage to the context of therapy. I have a feeling that this kind of legalization shouldn't be equivalent to marijuana where you'd be able to walk into a store and purchase some out of curiosity.
I haven't tried psilocybin yet, because of my impressions above, and because without knowing someone who could act as a guide I don't think it would be worth it.
What are you going to do with those people who choose to use psychedelics for religious or other purposes outside of a therapeutic context? Throw them in jail? We know that doesn't work, is counterproductive, and ruins lives. People are going to do them regardless, especially as more and more people wake up to how beneficial they can be.
If there's a media backlash from the inevitable increase in negative reactions as more and more people use psychedelics, we'll have to take on that backlash head on. Hopefully the world will react more sanely than the last time there was a moral panic about psychedelics in the 1960's and 70's.
We've learned a lot since then, there's a lot more information in the public about these substances, and they're not as closely associated with the counterculture, the antiwar movement, and antiestablishment sentiment this time around. They're actually much more mainstream now, and as allies there are many suffering people and even veterans who see the healing potential of these substances, so it's much harder to demonize their users as mere druggies and freaks, as was done in the 1960's and 70's.
As every successive year of the Psychedelic Renaissance passes and more and more positive results come out of all the research that's going on in to them, I'm feeling more and more hopefull that they'll fully become part of the mainstream culture in some fashion (starting with therapeutic and religious use), and that there'll be no major backlash.
Even McKenna swore off mushrooms after he went through a hellishly intense existential nightmare. His brother wrote a book about it: The brotherhood of the screaming abyss. It’s not all rainbows and happy elves, there are trips so devastatingly dark that make death seem like a merciful release.
To respond to the somewhat rude "don't come to Amsterdam and do drugs if you don't know what you're doing" post:
You have a strong psychedelic substance being legally sold with totally unknown strenghth (as 'grams of truffles' doesn't count). What could go wrong? These products definitely need better labelling. I've also seen ridiculously strong pot edibles being sold in Amsterdam with insufficient labelling, but I digress.
This particular doseage mistake might not have been made if mushrooms were legally available as their psilocybin content is much more predictable. ("I did X grams last time and that was fine so I'll do X grams again!" is mostly reasonable) The problems are exacerbated by prohibition.
Why did you go for a full dose when the half-dose was amazing? Did you expect a different outcome?
It absolutely can work for depression sometimes, just be careful and intentional, and don't just talk somebody into it who may not be ready for it.
People with pre-existing health and psychiatric conditions, and young people should be doubly careful. The physical and sometimes psychological effects of some substances can be dangerous, especially when mixed with other drugs (alcohol is a particularly bad one to mix with).
Psilocybin mushrooms are some of the safest psychedelics around, but at the very least be absolutely sure you got the right kind (have them identified by experts or grow your own)... and starting with lower doses, in a good set and setting, with someone more experienced than you who you like and trust is prudent. Have some quiet days to integrate the experience afterwards, maybe with a therapist.
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
[2] - https://erowid.org
And since we are talking about "depressed" people, that should qualify as a preexisting psychiatric condition.
The problem is, in most places there are no professional therapists avaiable who can (legally) work with mushrooms. And really, long term depressed persons, often have no one around, they can prepare a trip with.
Despite that, there are underground therapists who will do just that.. and even licensed therapists will sometimes do so. Discretely ask around and you might be pleasantly surprised.
"really, long term depressed persons, often have no one around, they can prepare a trip with."
There are free, online trip sitters that you can contact here:
and
This is the real sadness to me. So many people seem to start dabbling in various forms of drugs as a way to ail their problems, and if there were qualified people who could help with that (beyond merely dishing out the typical SSRIs, benzos or stimulants) I think a lot of good could be done.
I completely disagree with the term "microdosing" though. I think this should be considered a standard dosage. Nobody calls a few ml's of cough syrup a "microdose" just because half a liter can cause euphoria, disorientation, etc. Calling this amount of mushroom a "microdose" only furthers the impression that psilocybin is a primarily recreational substance.
Cocaine is both too, by the way, stops intra-nasal bleeding post-op.
Not only the body weight of the person is going to matter, yields of active substance varies heavily and there is no consensus on what a microdose is. Cut-off can be as low as 0.2 grams.
Psychedelic use is correlated with an increase in neuroticism though, and not as a function of the badness of the trip. Plus in a susceptible person even 0.5g can trigger a first psychotic episode.
I find such claims of safety unfoundedly bold and honestly irresponsible.
These type of drugs have been shown time and time again to be massively effective in treating depression, anxiety and PTSD. It is a crime that ultra conservative socialty morals have prevented a more in depth study of their use. The fact of the matter is we treat our vets with a cocktail of drugs for PTSD that have major side effects and provide little relief. It was my experience and the experience of serval people I know that had PTSD that the use of magic mushrooms provided a substantial and sustained relief.
All that said, actually waiting for FDA approval does seem a lot less risky
While I find the anecdotes compelling. I would assume that to make multiple anecdotes evidence you'd have to at least register these anecdotes systematically, otherwise you only hear the extreme ones that people like to tell.
A temperature sensor that you know isn't desiged to work at subzero is reporting -30 consistently. It may be -40 or -20 but you know it's below zero.
Someone reporting symptom relief from depression, (which is something who's most severe symptoms are by definition subjective,) after taking psilocybin is a good data point. It without a doubt has helped.
Why, how, and discovery of caveats notwithstanding; it's something worthy of understanding, and with anecdotes (plural) consideration for use * . Just because the picture is incomplete, doesn't devalue the existing data points. Which is the thing I was trying to push back on. My data points may be weak, or noisy. But my data points are worth more than your scepticism. Full disclosure, I'm a card carrying sceptic saying that. I always think there's more to be understood, but merely devaluing the data points you currently have is not the way to go about it.
Ask questions, don't raise complaints.
* : some restrictions apply
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/anecdotal
I think it's fair to say that medical research is not scaled up anecdotes.
Depends, it can also go the other way around.
I remember from my teenage years, that mostly the horror trips from some persons, with the scary anecdotes of people who stayed on the trip and never came of it and stayed in some asylum, were openly shared.
One of the reasons, I was very cautious and never did a mushroom trip at that time and especially not in a potential bad environments like parties, focused on drinking.
If so, I saw that one too ...
Great and intense movie. So far the only time where I can say with certainty that a movie changed my life.
With natural medicine there's always people who point out the downsides, but with products made by the pharmacological industry, there's always those who defend SSRIs.
Is it even possible to gather some actual data on this issue without obvious bias either way?
The medical industry seems to have obvious motive to downplay any natural remedy as it doesn't make them money, and actively competes with their own products. On the other hand what motive would the average person have to unreasonably hype up things like the healing power of shrooms?
Ego and I'm-better-and-more-enlightened-than-you attitude. You find this very often with cannabis smokers or "ents" as they fancy themselves. Also it's not that hard to find people peddling any type of dubious method : Homeopathy, crystals, acupuncture, Chakra meditation, putting up angel figurines. Often with the same amount of conviction and zealousness.
> what motive would the average person have to unreasonably hype up things like the healing power of shrooms?
It's something to hang a personality from.
There are a couple of drivers of ketamine's popularity for treating depression:
First, it actually seems to work astonishingly well for a lot of people (certainly way better than standard antidepressants), though not for everyone.
Second, it's a big money grab for ketamine "therapists" (I use "therapists" in quotes because many of them just sit around while you get your injection, and don't actually provide much if any therapy) who can charge $500 or more per treatment (which usually isn't covered by insurance), and people often come back for treatment multiple times a week or month for long periods of time. The cost of ketamine itself in these treatments is negligible.
An interesting development in ketamine therapy is the use of ketamine lozenges, which patients can take at home and therefore are way cheaper than having a medical team inject you with ketamine in their office.
- bad trips are rare if your respect set and settings, which every responsible consumer will tell you to do.
- they have been used politically in bad faith. It's only fair to not add to the stack of propaganda.
- most of bad trips are not a bad thing. It can be spectacular, but rarely dangerous, and may actually be a good thing. My only bad trip helped me grow just like my good ones. It was not pleasant, just like throwing up stale food is not, but I was mentally healthier after it. Some dark things are inside of us all, and it's good they come out, but the experience is likely not something we crave for.
She learned a valuable lesson that weekend about buying funny stuff in plastic bags from strangers.
There are plenty of both good and bad trip reports.
The thing about bad trips, though, is that many people actually get a lot out of them, and find them to be therapeutic or something they learned from.
I've personally learned a lot more from my bad trips than my good trips, and ultimately found them a lot more rewarding. Not that I'd want to have a bad trip, but I found them to be a lot more insightful and those were the trips that really helped me grow, while the good trips were just fun.
Human trials, not so much. Also, who would volunteer for depression + psychedelics before and after brain biopsies to prove this thesis? Maybe try it on the "before" sample in vitro first?
I guess it's hard to google because anything involving "super bowl" is quite a haystack. But apparently it's called the "Perfect Prediction Scam": https://www.google.com/search?q=%22perfect+prediction+scam%2....
Apparently Alfred Hitchcock did a TV episode about it: "The Mail Order Prophet" (1957):
http://barebonesez.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-hitchcock-projec...
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6uue06
"I wish he hadn't done it. We have a very sensitive elevator man. He doesn't like it when he brings people up, and then they don't ride down again. It confuses him."
https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/141214323096402739...
i have no words to explain the relief.
How could you even do that? As buying and possession of psychedelics is illegal in most countries.
Try asking around at psychedelic conferences and psychedelic meetups.
Also try contacting MAPS[1] and CIIS[2] (which has a training program for psychedelic therapists), and related organizations. Contacting people doing research in to psychedelics might also be fruitful.
[1] - https://maps.org/
[2] - https://www.ciis.edu/
You could just have a friend you trust babysit.
More from MAPS: [3], [4]
Finally, laws around psychedelic use and therapy vary around the world. In some places in the world (like in parts of Europe and South and Central America) psychedelic therapy is much more widely practiced above-ground than it is in the US.
[1] - https://www.ciis.edu/research-centers/center-for-psychedelic...
[2] - https://www.ciis.edu/research-centers/center-for-psychedelic...
[3] - https://maps.org/news/media/8532-psychology-today-how-to-bec...
A licensed therapist who does psychedelics is someone outside the norms of society while at the same time carrying a license that carries the implicit promise of following society's rules. It just strikes me as "weird" to seek that out.
on the other hand it is perfectly legal for food/oil traders in geneva to starve entire countries / destroy an entire planet for short term profit.
i suspect psychedelics will remain illegal here for a long time since at least half of our politicians are paid by the pharmaceutical industry, so that would crunch a multi billion market.
for all we know it helped their rheumatoid arthritis.
For all we know lay folk use the word depressed for feeling bummed. (Not insinuating this is the case with the GP)
however i wouldn't be surprised my dendritic tree grew 10% last two weeks like the article claim.
in both cases i was in safe contexts, which is very important.
also in both cases there was an introspective phase at the end of the trip followed by a relief phase approx 15-30 long.
During mine, I cried a lot, I texted my mum but I'm still inside the same hole that I was in before. Also some additional experiments with LSD (halfdose as well microdosing) didn't help with my depression.
i'm a highly introspective person and worked 10% of the times for me.
Still, there are ways that you can maximize your chances of getting therapeutic benefit out of psychedelics.
Doing psychedelics with a trained psychedelic therapist that you like, respect, and trust is probably the most effective way.
Something else you can do is read some good guides like James Fadiman's The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide[1] and the MAPS Treatment Guide for MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy[2]
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
[2] - https://maps.org/research-archive/mdma/MDMA-Assisted-Psychot...
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Gods-Original-Knowledge-Evolutio...
Mechanistically it just doesn’t make any sense. The reason mushrooms make us trip is because there’s already a network there that they “talk” to (the 5ht_2a receptor system)
And how exactly would non-linguistic animals suddenly gain linguistic ability? They better hope everyone around them is tripping on the perfect dose too otherwise they’re just gonna perceive it as meaningless babblimg
But how does binding to the 5-HT[2A] receptor lead to, say, communing with one's dead mother, or to forgiveness of oneself or one's abusive father, or to a creative breakthrough on a problem you've been struggling with for months or years, or to an encounter with one's god, or to the realization that you/we are god, or to curing/treating depression or addiction, etc?
These are open questions that science doesn't have very satisfying answers to yet.
Agreed.
—
It’s nowhere near complete but one place to start is psychedelic (a) increase communication across/between disparate brain regions, (b) synchronize the various waves of brain activity into a single vibration, and (c) reduces the threshold at which pattern matching / classifier networks will fire (thus the increased visual acuity at small doses and pareidolia and other visual effects at high doses)
I remember a study that explained (b), can’t remember anything else about it though :/
—
EDIT: https://ai.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-... is also great to think about. DeepDream produces very psychedelic images and the bit about reversing the network and having it recurse on pattern matching its on output to “massage” the raw input into alignment with a schema (akin to feeding output back into input) is very relevant
you are not communicating with your dead mother or you are not being a god.
it works for depression because it allows the brain to exercise and form neural pathways that are not normally allowed. even if we think about the brain as one organ, in reality there are a lot of interconnected neural nets that are regulated by a central supervisory net called the DMN. Under psychedelics, the DMN shuts down while the other networks increase activity.
I don't think this has to be an sudden event? Apes are already communicating with each other and have the relevant structures for communication in place. It isn't impossible for me to imagine that mushrooms with their creativity-heightening effects might offer insights to an ape on how to improve the utilization of that which is already there, making their communication more refined, precise and expressive. It also isn't impossible to imagine that in a group of social animals better communication would likely increase the probability of survival and leaving offspring, thus influencing evolution.
Look, I seriously love shrooms. I stopped everything else, especially weed with all of its subtly negative effects which creep up over time, and do frequent mushroom trips and occasional light dose of alcohol. That said, I find it funny when people do a drug that alters their thinking and perceptions on such a deep level but draw a line at where they think those effects begin and end as if the brain/mind was ever that clearly compartmentalized.
> And also how do they produce such dramatic effects (generally beneficial when used judiciously) in humans with seemingly very little toxicity?
While toxicity may be low, it's very unlikely we'll find few side effects. The reason we don't know many ill effects of the drugs used in small doses is that we haven't studied them properly yet (meaning at a population level over time).
I think it would be fascinating to know more about the anabolic/metabolic pathways that create these molecules. Could it be we are seeing similar products created as mutations of core synthetic pathways?
It's important to understand that the venom of Bufo alvarius (the Colorado River toad)[1] contains 5-MeO-DMT, not NN-DMT. It is NN-DMT that is colloquially known as "DMT", and the two substances should NOT be confused.
They are very different in effect, though closely related chemically.
5-MeO-DMT is widely considered to be by far the most powerful psychedelic on the planet. NN-DMT is considered to be much more powerful than traditional psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, but still a pale shadow compared to 5-MeO-DMT. NN-DMT is a lot more visual than 5-MeO-DMT, while the latter is considered to be much more likely to lead to states of non-dual awareness and ego-death.
For more information on 5-MeO-DMT see: [2]
Something else to note about the bufo alvarius venom: these toads are under threat and might well go extinct because they're being recklessly exploited for their venom.[3]
Furthermore, their venom contains a lot of other compounds apart from 5-MeO-DMT, some of which are known to be toxic when ingested. So it should always be smoked, never ingested! Even when smoked the venom could cause health problems for people with heart conditions. The synthetic form of 5-MeO-DMT only consists of 5-MeO-DMT itself, so has none of these problems, though people with heart conditions should probably still avoid even the synthetic version.
Finally, some people who style themselves "DMT shamans" use very dangerous practices like pouring water in the mouths of people who are essentially unconscious under the influence of 5-MeO-DMT, mixing drugs, slapping and kicking people under the influence, and covering their mouth and nose... fatalities have resulted from these dangerous practices.[4] So if you are considering trying this substance very carefully vet who you do it with!
I strongly recommend reading and following the guidelines from The Conclave.[5]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_toad
[2] - https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/5-meo-dmt
[3] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcarpenter/2021/02/02/psych...
[4] - https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=86872
There are also compounds that are toxic to basically every animal species for low-level common-animal-ancestor reasons, but which exist in the plants/fungi they exist in, in concentrations dictated by what’s required to kill/ward off the particular predators that plant/fungus had in its evolutionary environment. Aspirin, caffeine, nicotine, cocaine — these are all effective pesticides. They kill or severely harm insects. But we’re orders of magnitude larger than insects, so they have orders-of-magnitude less effect on us (unless we make orders-of-magnitude more concentrated doses of them, of course). That change in quantity, is reflected by a change in quality — i.e. having “a little bit” of caffeine does very different things to a body than having a lethal dose of caffeine.
While there is plenty of anecdotal support for the longer term benefits of etheogens, the road to a better understanding of yourself and place in the universe is strewn with people hiding in their beds or under a table. The psychonaughts experience isn't exactly a piece of cake and shouldn't be taken lightly. Likewise, the 'why' of why these things help with issues like depression are obvious to any one who has taken the trip. These kinds of altered states force you to confront demons. They help you because they are >hard< and you have to deal with things. The experience helps with depression because it specifically brings to light the issues and causes of ones depression and you have to deal with them.
I'm concerned about the idea of boiling the positive benefits of something like mushrooms into a single compound.
But as earlier post pointed out, we don't really know why they do these things, why should they be so beneficial to us?. Let's say they are poison to thwart off plant-eaters. Then why do they work towards GOOD in small doses? Have humans evolved the capability for psychedelic experiences meaning experiences of unity which is a trait that helps survival of the specific species which experiences it?
Like humans can be outright killed by touching some jellyfish, while turtles just eat them. I wonder if to turtles, jellyfish taste pleasurably spicy due to what chemical poisons us, like onions taste for us, which poisons insects. Overall, they're still good deals for the jellyfish and onions, since the traits are preserved.
Why does St. John’s Wort, passionflower etc have antidepressant effects? Why does penicillin mold produce an antibiotic? Why does gingerols act as anti-emetics? Why do coca leaves, coffee beans give a buzz?
There is nothing magical with an active compound to have a specific dose-response curve either.
I don't know what listing a bunch of similar mysteries does to make the question less mysterious. Are you implying that these questions can't have answers and everything is unknowable? Is this one of the arguments where someone says that we can't answer your question until we answer every other question first? I don't get it.
The question is why do psychedelic drugs hit our brains in the peculiar way they do, which also has a therapeutic effect.
First why do they cause the experience that they do, and secondly why is that experience therapeutic? I think these are interesting questions without clear answers as of yet.
It has been speculated that mushrooms caused religion. Religion is spread all over the world so there must be something "fit" about it. It is as if mushrooms and human societies are in some kind of symbiotic relationship.
Those are the easier effects to explain. Much harder is why these compounds cure/treat depression or addiction, make people see infinite beauty or god, enhance their creativity, etc... Not much analogy to poison there.
Psychedelics in that sense may be distracting poisons rather than harmful poisons
Nevertheless, it still seems quite remarkable that such a molecule could coincidentally send a big mammal on a trip through the doors of perception.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175450481...
Perhaps at first thought, yes, because mammals, insects and mushrooms are such different things.
To put it in perspective though, they share more than 2 billion years of evolutionary history when you look past their last common ancestor.
That M1 CPU in your new MacBook is a much mightier beast than the little black ICs in your grandfathers transistor radio, but they both rely on the same fundamental NPN silicone junction property. And that’s only 60 years of evolution.
Capsaicin triggers the heat-sensing nerves in mammals specifically. Scientists think this is because birds disperse the seeds well after consumption, while us mammals tend to crush the seeds with our grinding teeth. Peppers don't want to kill us, they just want to hurt as real bad ;)
These are some of the most important and fascinating open questions regarding these substances, the answers to which have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the mind and mental health. Unfortunately, at the glacial pace that human studies in to psychedelics are proceeding[1], we will probably have to wait a very long time to find out.
Meanwhile, there are religious answers to these questions, as many psychedelic users consider these substances, plants, and animals sacred or even divine. Other theories, regarding psilocybin mushrooms, for instance, have been that they are some sort of alien beings who are trying to communicate vast amounts of information to humans or trying to influence human evolution. Similarly, I've heard theories that nature or "Mother Earth" is communicating through these substances, plants, and animals to humans to try to stop the environmental destruction they are causing, etc.
Materialists, physicalists, or naturalists[2] might scoff at such explanations (especially if they've never had strong psychedelic experiences, though sometimes even then), but I believe that it's likely that a great religious revival is heralded by the renewed interest and widespread use of psychedelics. Some have argued that psychedelics were the original cause of some if not all the great religions, and plenty of new religions are being inspired by psychedelic use all the time.. so such religious/non-materialistic/supernatural explanations and more are likely to become more and more widespread in the future.
[1] - While the popular view is that psychedelic research is running full steam ahead since we're in the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance, the unfortunate fact is that human studies of psychedelics are still very difficult and time-consuming to get approval for, and there really aren't that many.
[2] - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
Psychedelics clearly don't inevitably lead people to become believers... but still a lot of people do, especially when they have overwhelmingly powerful mystical experiences (which we know are pretty likely to happen on psychedelics).
[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/oa6782/atheist_...
It didn't work for me though—in epistemology class once I said to the lecturer "I don't know anything!"—not being flippant, at the time I really felt I couldn't be 100% certain of anything—and he said instantly, unimpressed, "Don't you know your name?".. (Which didn't seem quite fair. He didn't "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation". Or maybe he did.)
Is it not more likely that these substances just happen to match the knob labeled "profound" in our brains and crank it to 11? I hope these studies move very cautiously but optimistically, because as someone whose life was deeply damaged by a religious upbringing, the prospect of another psychedelic religious revival concerns me. Religion and mysticism tend to diverge over time, leading to conflict. Scientific knowledge tends to converge over time, suggesting science is a more reliable means of acquiring knowledge. So I hope a primarily scientific approach is taken with psychedelic research.
Maybe. But regardless of what the more materialistically minded among us might think, many people are going to interpret these experiences religiously anyway. It's been that way all throughout history, and it's likely going to be many hundreds if not thousands of years until religious interpretations of experience dissappear.. if ever. (My bet is on never)
"I hope these studies move very cautiously but optimistically, because as someone whose life was deeply damaged by a religious upbringing, the prospect of another psychedelic religious revival concerns me."
Me too.. especially when these religions are full of people who have no compunctions on using violence and believe themselves to be the only possessors of The Truth.
Unfortunately, psychedelics don't automatically make their users in to tree-hugging, peace-loving hippies. See Charles Manson or Mike Tyson (sorry, don't mean to imply they're at all in the same category.. but they are both examples of heavy psychedelic users who aren't averse to violence... and Manson started a cult).
Some people are great at deluding themselves and others, and for certain types of people psychedelics can make such persuasion much more effective.
I've had strong psychedelic and dissociative experiences. There's nothing about those experiences that cannot be explained with materialism.
Or with religion. People pick and choose the explanations they like, and neither scientific nor religious explanations are going to be satisfactory for everyone.
It'd be another story if science could at least explain the really big open questions about the mind, consciousness, the mind-body connection, and how psychedelics work.. but we are very, very far from that.
Lure a "pollinator" to protect and spread it. Avocados were the diet of some unknown animal that no longer exists. Avocados shouldn't exist except for humans preserving and exploiting them.
Well, look at capsicum. Birds can't taste it but mammals can. Even so, most deer and some humans sure do like jalapeños.
Some compounds are deadly poisons to particular predators while merely annoyances to others. Beyond deadly poisons, there are deterrents like emetics, anticoagulants, dissociatives, and paralytics aimed at defending from particular predators.
These are evolutionarily-conserved because they add to the fitness of a species.
Nature is a hacker: it reuses (mutations) a lot of pathways and molecules for different purposes. We just hack compounds out of nature intended for other functions that also happen to serve our purposes at therapeutic doses.
Fungi and plants were treated in the same category some thousand years ago, but times changed and now are categorized by biologists as new and very different creatures deserving its entire kingdom. The old concept of 'plants' has split into several unrelated lineages.
Fungi have a easily recognizable and unique cell structure than neither animals, nor plants have, so can't be the origin of our brains.
Bacteria are older.
Nobody knows if that fossil is a fungus. It looks like one, but to me looks much more like a tiny sponge. I could be wrong and could be perfectly a third different thing. Ctenophora are now the oldest animals I think, so there was a lot of old complexity yet from the start that we don't know well.
How are you determining your own behaviour during your experience? Is it purely from your own recollections or is it from a third person viewpoint (video evidence, a sober trip sitter etc.)?
Elevated levels of autophagy after fasting result in the elimination of senescence-like neurons. Individual neurons of this type can negatively influence the extracellular environment and may promote induction of the same phenotype in surrounding cells, as well as driving aging and age-related diseases.
With the obligatory 'In Mice' addendum.
For me, I try not to judge people for their body shape and listen to what they have to say regardless.
The "festooned set" is a common thing across YouTube influencers and affiliate marketers, this guy particularly likes to push bone broth and other keto related stuff. Doesn't mean he isn't damn well versed in the subject matter though.
If you like I can track down some old 3 hour long talks on autophagy and fasting if you'd prefer, those doc's are pretty funny too sometimes.
Also, I just pulled out a copy of the book I mentioned, and in the appendix he's got 467 citations. I'd say ballpark over half of those are peer reviewed medical journals.
Doesn't seem very duck-like, but I'm interested to hear your take on why he's a quack.
IME, there is always some nugget of truth behind bizarre public crazes.
But agree, fasting is great for cleaning up the biological cruft.
...
Citation desperately needed.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12603-013-0344-9
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027858462...
I experienced none of the effects. People claim to be sharper and more energised during fast, but all I experienced was noticeable sluggishness (no glucose, only fat as energy source) and bit more pissy about small things (though I recognise it and never act on it).
P.S. Worth mentioning, any water fast above 4 days can be potentially dangerous if you don't take supplements that regulate your bodily functions, like salt, potassium, magnesium etc. I have read accounts of people doing only water fast no supplements for 10-15 days and report serious symptoms of their body shutting down (maily cells dying due to lack of salt).
Care must be taken to avoid potassium overdose if supplementing with potassium. Sodium chloride is well tolerated on the order of no more than 20 grams per day spread out over the whole day.
California just voted in favor of a bill that would allow those 21 and older to possess for personal use and social sharing LSD, mescaline and the psilocybin.
I suspect a lot of consolidation and new players entering, but it's definitely in its infancy and will be exciting to watch it mature. One company called Braxia Scientific is opening ketamine clinics throughout Canada and plans to do so in the US. They also just received funding from the Canadian government to study the effects so some of these companies are legit.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/braxia-scientific-awarded-go...
Hopefully some way will be found to keep the providers small, local, employee-owned, and ethical... maybe non-profit even.
Magnesium-L-Threonate (Magtein) also increases synaltic density but without hallucination. However it doesn't offer the serotonin effects of psilocybin.
Aerobic exercise regimens offer both, but without the hallucinogenic benefits of having a new perspective on things.
How well is the latter known? Is that consensus? Also, is it just an effect or a possible cause of depression? If it's just an effect, why would reparation be an effective treatment for depression?
Some people still have difficult experiences, but with the aid of properly trained therapists even those experiences can be constructive, and people can come out healed on the other side of even the worst trips.
It's also important to be in a safe, comfortable place, without people you don't intimately trust around, at a time when you can just focus on yourself on the day of the experience and ideally at least a day or two afterwards.
For anyone considering using psychedelics, consider that a "bad trip" might make you uncomfortable but it will also force you to confront your problems.
"Eighty participants, ages 21 to 65, who meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) will be stratified by study site and randomized with a 1-to-1 allocation under double-blind conditions to receive a single 25 mg oral dose of psilocybin or a single 100 mg oral dose of niacin. Niacin will serve as an active placebo."
> Eighty participants, ages 21 to 65, who meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) will be stratified by study site and randomized with a 1-to-1 allocation under double-blind conditions to receive a single 25 mg oral dose of psilocybin or a single 100 mg oral dose of niacin. Niacin will serve as an active placebo.
I'm not convinced these participants are mice.
(As an aside, I love the way they talk about double blind conditions as if you're not going to be able to tell whether that pill was 25mg of psilocybin.).
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.17.431629v1....
... Dr. Bronner is supporting research in that area for a while.
It could be revolutionary if they make a difference.
Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any studies of this except for a study in to microdosing LSD as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's.[1][2]
This is a wide open area, and I hope some patients' advocacy groups start seriously funding research in to this and demanding that governments remove the many regulatory hurdles that still stand in the way.
[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/abbierosner/2020/02/21/microdos...
Although depression is not well understood, there are some theories/interpretations of the data. One of which is the differences of mechanism behind 5-HT_1A and 5-HT_2A:
SSRIs are (stronger) antagonists for 5-HT_1A which is theorised to increase "passive coping". Psychadelics are (stronger) antagonists for 5-HT_2A which is theorised to increase "active coping".
The original paper that proposes this is "Serotonin and brain function: a tale of two receptors" by Harris and Nutt, hopefully my simplification has been accurate enough.
This is quite interesting as it mirrors not only what I've experienced but also the conversations I've had with other. The following is obviously the anecdotal opinion of a single person. Firstly neither SSRIs or Psychadelics by themselves "fix the problems with the world" - if being in debt living paycheck to paycheck or having a bad relationship is a contributing factor then taking medication doesn't magically make that go away.
Whilst on SSRIs, although there was an objective decrease in symptoms subjectively it it became increasingly difficult to continue the course of medication. This is not uncommon, as can be seen in "Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis" by Andrea Cipriani et al. In contrast psychadelics and the "mania", flexible thinking, decreased pessimism they induced combined with the subjective contrast was extremely insightful - "oh yeah, I can be happy". Although objectively my actions did not change much, subjectivly they were no longer "shameful", I didn't need to ruminate and accepted them.
But it should be said, taking psychadelics when not in a good mental state is incredibly dangerous, especially if it is the first time. This is mirrored in this review of a review (https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/on-cerebralab-on-nuttc...). To quote the original review:
> I found it curious that people who take psychedelics for introspection usually end up as religious cranks or burnouts. While people that take psychedelics because "they are fun" don't seem to experience many negative side effects. Under this framework, it makes perfect sense, activate highly conceptual functions in the cortex and tell them to solve an intrinsic and emotional, you'll end up with some very weird conceptual scaffolding.
This allowed me the space to think about how I should build an identity I was happier with.
Another time (LSD) I had an experience so terrifying that nothing in the mortal world compares. It destabilized me for a bit, however, the experience helped me recognize the volatility bounds of “normal” life emotions and that keeps them in perspective.
Ketamine, a psychedelic which has proven to be a very effective treatment for depression, actually does not act on the serotonin pathway at all, but instead is an NMDA receptor antagonist.
It's not accurate to say Ketemene (S-Ketemine) has no action on the Seratonin pathway, I believe there was a recent study that found a possible action via the 5-HT_1B receptor.
But here's a patented little pill that you can take every day for the rest of your life just to feel human.
Pill a day, pill a day...
And who is "we"?
You should always ask this question when you see the word. Most people use it incorrectly because they falsely assume it includes people who would prefer to not be included in their statement.
To me this just sounds like more of the same stuff our societies keep pushing: that all the problems are ones of individual responsibility, not systemic flaws. You're depressed because there's something wrong with you, not the world you live in, so fix yourself instead of trying to make the world better.
> And who is "we"?
I guess any society where >10% of the population, and growing, is on an antidepressant.
Who is "we"?
What is "our"s?
Stop pretending to speak for everyone else.
You've misinterpreted what I meant. I'm not only applying this to depressed people, but to everybody. In order to address problems, you need to start with yourself, by first understanding the problems and their causes. You can't address the problems blind.
Many people's idea of "make the world better," at some point, involves having the State do something more than it was previously doing. They're shooting themselves in the foot, because the problem is the State itself. You can't fix the State by growing it. The State must shrink. People have an unjustified trust in the State. It has been programmed into them through school and work, and it is difficult to overcome. In fact, if you confront them about it, they will aggressively defend the State using pre-programmed responses (ie, the roads).
So to make the world better, you need to get out of the Statist mindset, and start thinking as an individual. Treat the State as your enemy. It's a violent criminal gang which supports its operations via aggression and extortion. Try not paying taxes and you'll find out it's true nature.
One thing you might find is that there is quite an overlap between those who are depressed and those who are outwardly atheist, and conversely, relatively low rates of depression among the religious. Wonder why that is?
I think this simple image can explain an awful lot: https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1456172167373.jpg
Government isn't the problem, it's problems are just a reflection of sickness that infects the culture of its citizens.
W all bear collective responsibility for that sickness and that's what needs fixing, that's how the world is made better.
The problem is that government steals wealth through intimidation and violence, and then uses it for whatever purposes it sees fit.
The culture is sick because it sees theft as acceptable if they benefit from the theft. They overlook that theft is inherently immoral.
There is no person who knows how better to use wealth than the person who created or earned it.
"We" don't all bear responsibility for government. If you choose to be a Statist, that is not on me. You don't speak for me. Your State does not speak for me.
The world is made better when people create wealth, and people's living standards improve as a result. This happens despite the government pissing away much of that wealth.
And yes, personal responsibility is the moral way to live. There exists no right to other people's property or time.
Try Rothbardian.
My agenda is simply to be left alone.
Your agenda is to interfere in my business.
Then why are you here exploiting the infrastructure of civilization when you could be out pulling yourself up by your bootstraps where no government can touch you?
I'm speaking as someone who for a time was having multiple suicidal thoughts a day; a 7 gram dose gave me months where (despite remaining depressed) I didn't have a single suicidal thought.
It made a hell of a difference, I don't know what to say beyond that.
What's a safe way to consume psilocybin from such a "discovery", in terms of psychoactive dosage and for avoiding unwanted ancillary poisons?
edit: comment I replied to initially just said "the dark web" and the additional info was added after I replied.
It may be the case that when accidentally applied to a sterile growth medium, such as brown rice flour in a mason jar which was autoclaved in a regular pressure cooker for about 45 minutes, that after a few weeks the microscopy specimens will provide you with a new way to look at the world.
Be careful though, It's really easy to inadvertently drop the mason jars face down in a plastic tub that you use to store perlite that you bought from walmart, dislodging this nondescript white rubbery substance onto some tinfoil squares or better yet a metal rack suspended just above the perlite.
If you forget about the mistake you made with the mason jars and the plastic tub for a few more weeks, and the conditions remain humid enough somehow, you will sometimes find a complex biological reaction has occurred in the chamber.
Its important not to harvest them just before the veil is broken, chopping them up with a sharp knife and stirring them into a pot of water set to a low simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
In any case, if you discover that you, despite your best efforts, have still made this error, you should strain the chopped peices out and discard the water, or "tea", in a way that conforms to local and federal law. Some lemon juice and/or Numi brand morroccan mint tea helps with the disposal.
You might need some friends to help with that part though, it can take about 6-8 hours. You'll likely have a little trouble sleeping after all that work, so make sure to leave the next day open. I also recommend getting a bit stoned first using recreationaly legal marijuana.
Unfortunately, it sounds like way too much work for me.. and I'm too paranoid to risk going to jail for this hobby.. but I wish all those who do this the best. It's probably a lot safer and definitely cheaper than getting your mushrooms on the black market.
But, I'll certainly grant that the Drug War isn't well known for its ROI.
You can always take a nice vacation to Jamaica. https://www.mycomeditations.com/ (edit: website appears broken, currently. How unfortunate!)
This practice is totally legal in Jamaica, and mycomeditations specializes in group mediated psilocybin experiences and, rather importantly, includes integration discussions afterwards in a calm environment appropriate for self exploration.
For that, I highly recommend watching Alan Rockefeller's videos on psilocybin mushroom identification: [1] [2]
What's people's comfort level on this?
Its really not a big deal. 100% comfortable.
Note: am on the west coast.
You're not the one who's going to be going to jail if someone else gets arrested for growing their own.
Still, I'd be curious to see a state-by-state breakdown of how many people get arrested each year for growing psilocybin mushrooms for personal use.
Test a paste on a patch of skin, first. :)
"We are working as quickly as we can to develop psilocybin therapy for people suffering with treatment-resistant depression. We expect to report data from our phase IIb by the end of the year. If the results are positive, we then plan to begin a phase III study in 2022. Details of the sites that will be involved in this phase will be provided here as soon as they have been approved."
https://compasspathways.com/our-research/psilocybin-therapy/...
Mushrooms simply grow anywhere that is very moist and nutrient rich. Cow manure happens to fit the bill quite well - and there's a high probability that spores will find their way to the dung, because the cow grazes large areas of a field, and the spores it eats survive digestion.
However, you can find mushrooms simply by inspecting the fields yourself. They're typically found in the bottom of a valleys where moisture is high, on fields where animals have grazed. Also in the woods, under pine trees, and they grow on plant beds covered in wood chip (non-bark).
Also, even where they do grow on dung, the part of the mushroom you eat (the fruiting body) grows above the dung. The mycelium grows inside the dung, which you don't eat. You break off the fruit at the stem, without touching the dungs. You can wash the fruits before eating or drying them.
It's an illusion!
The original is always richer, more nuanced, detailed, colorful and REAL.
Humans seem to be obsessed with the illusion of mind 'enhancement', whether through drugs, alcohol or caffeine. It all reduces to this: an inablity to appreciate reality.
How many filters affect your experience that you're completely unaware of? Tons!!! What is really real, and how can you ascertain what's "reality" and what isn't?
Now, the way I think of psychedelics (and the way they worked for me) was that they removed a shroud — a bad filter, if you will — from my depressed mind. I was at -2 exposure, and with the help of psychedelics and a psychologist I was able to get back to right around 0.
Now, I'm actually able to appreciate "reality", or at least what I see of it. What's wrong with that?
On that view we are bombarded by an overwhelming amount of sensation and information every second -- so much that if we were aware of it all we wouldn't be able to function. So the brain functions like a valve and reduces this flow of sensation and information to a manageable level -- just enough so that we can do practical things such as go to work , do the dishes, etc..
Psychedelics have the effect of opening up this valve so that one experiences more of what one is sensing, so one actually sees more of reality than one does in one's ordinary waking state of consciousness.
The problem is that it's harder to function in such a psychedelically open state (at least with large doses of psychedelics, like the kind Huxley was using back in the 60's). Under the influence of mescaline, for example, Huxley found the dishes in the sink too beautiful to wash.
This is just one alternate view of how psychedelics work. There are many others.
The mind already has the ability to 'filter'. One can achieve the same 'loss of ego' effect by deeply listening to music, or climbing a mountain, or gazing at stars, or hovering on the edge of sleep, or...
I liken caffeine to a 'sharpen' filter, alcohol to a 'blur' filter. Psychedelics? You can imagine the analogous filters for those... ;-)
The point is, mind-altering substances are a lazy, dirty way to get there. They descend like a blanket on the brain, clouding out reality. And that's what it's really about, if one is honest with oneself.