Study finds no detrimental effects of psilocybin in 10mg or 25mg dose

That's probably outside the scope of this study. You were probably not in a regulated setting or under the care of a psychiatrist at the time. I'd imagine there's some guidance involved in the whole process that recreational users would miss.

Do you think it was psilocybin that gave you those thoughts or do you think the idea of psilocybin gave you good cover to experiment in idealism of youth? Your realism and experience sound more like the practical wisdom a lot of people gain over the 10 years of their 20s.

it's interesting to turn the question around: is it possible to fuck someone up for life w/25mg of psilocybin? with the right set and setting maybe

That is a very good example, and thank you for sharing your experience. It should be noted that in the original article the test subjects (1) take Psilocybin only once and (2) are followed from this dose by hours of therapy by a professional psychologist.

If that is what you did you probably would have been more grounded. But it is absolutely crazy to deduce from this very controlled experiment with a very limited single dose of Psilocybin and a lot of therapy after that, that recreational use is ok. This experiment was designed to allow for further controlled experiments to check for Psilocybin potential for treatment of depression and the like. That is all it should be used for.

Interesting. That almost sounds like mania/hypomania.

(Not saying that it induced a hypomanic episode, just that all of those fit the description)

However you turn it around, you are the Universe experiencing itself subjectively. That's easy to understand without any drugs.

Having felt that during your trip might have led you to the wrong conclusion that your social life will somehow magically be improved by this knowledge alone. It could be, but not without a lot of good old work and effort. Even after all of that, there's no guarantee that you'll get what you want and won't get what you don't want.

A lot of people waste their lives with or without the drugs, so maybe it wasn't just this substance that led to those setbacks.

> I definitely think Psilocybin gave me negative long term effects.

I think it's extremely bizarre that the public narrative has become that psilocybin will:

1) Create an openness to new ideas and flood you with different thoughts and feelings

2) Only create positive changes, thoughts, and feelings.

There's a big push in online comment sections to deny, downplay, or otherwise dismiss negative experiences. Psychedelic enthusiasts will come out of the woodwork and try to argue away any anecdotes that aren't purely positive, blaming them on everything from vague underlying mental health conditions to a misuse of the drugs. But it's almost always victim-blaming.

I'm glad you were able to process your experience and undo the unhealthy changes. Thanks for helping spread awareness that psychedelic-induced changes aren't automatically good or positive.

Sorry to be blunt, but this sounds like an issue with your thinking, rather than an issue with psilocybin. You were already vulnerable to woo woo and narcissistic thinking, and psilocybin just awakened these traits in you. It's analogous to how hallucinogens can cause snaps in people with undiagnosed schizophrenia. In fact it could be said that it helped you because you became aware of them and flushed them out of your system.

BTW, "the world is a harsh place that doesn't owe anyone anything" is just as much as a subjective value judgement of reality as "the universe is on my side".

Yeah I think it’s really important to use psychedelics with a therapist. I’ve seen a number of friends go down this path. Having a therapist can help ground you and understand what the experience means to your emotional body.

That being said due to subjectivity you are quite literally the center of your universe =P

> and the world is a harsh place that doesn't owe anyone anything.

Which is just another subjective view...

Not sure if your comment concludes actually the opposite: You should do Psilocybin if you want to have a happy idalistic life with less career struggles.

> . I made a lot of goofy choices with too much idealism and gusto and not much of a plan and it set my life and career back when it didn't work out

You are blaming the drugs? I think you should take responsibility yourself!

> that I am not the center of the universe, and the world is a harsh place that doesn't owe anyone anything

that's usually what I take from a trip on mushrooms - seriously

This is a great insight of a consequence that is unlikely to be considered.

> It make me incredibly narcissistic and allowed my brain to think in a very "the universe is on my side" kind of way, and I was open to a lot of magical thinking and woo woo after the trip.

That's why it takes a sufficiently mature (in terms of rationality, emotional intelligence and moral values) mind for a trip to be actually safe. One can reach it sooner or later or never but I would consider 25 (when your prefrontal cortex development actually peaks and you have already have gained your fair amount of general experience) a reasonable mean and recommend avoiding psychoactive substances (unless a competent professional decides the opposite and is going to supervise) if you are significantly younger, no matter how legal in your state they are.

BTW the universe actually is on your side. The moment it's not you're dead.

> I made a lot of goofy choices with too much idealism and gusto and not much of a plan and it set my life and career back when it didn't work out.

Why do you believe that's bad? I would say a life without goofiness is a horror. A world without idealism is hell. Some choices setting your life and career back occasionally are inevitable and can actually bring immense value you just don't (immediately or ever) consciously recognize. My life/choices has always been a disaster but prepared me to and at some moment "has put" me in a specific place where I have met my soulmate who turnt my life in a paradise (long proven sustainable and, arguably, even antifragile).

> I am not the center of the universe

Well, you can't prove you aren't and numerous philosophers (and some Everett interpretation enthusiasts) would say you are. And this doesn't mean you have to be a jerk.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I've reposted below what I wrote to someone else, in the hope that you (or anyone reading) may find this helpful (and hopefully find a way to more peace).

I would point out, in particular that:

1. When using psychedelics, there may be a period of emotional and intellectual turmoil (which may loosely coincide with a 'bad trip' at the time of ingestion or subsequently, during a period of integration). This generally, but not always, results in a long term overall improvement in mood and overall outlook.

2. Openness to more creative ideas is a common feature of psychedelic use. A cynical take would be that you become more suggestible/easily influenced (and this may be a feature also). There definitely seams to be a new willingness to consider new viewpoints, new ideas and new options. You may find yourself re-engaging in old intellectual pursuits, exploring previously unsolved problems and/or using previously unrelated topics/fields in conjunction.

----- Repost: Psychedelics are very powerful compounds acting on the infinitely complex human nervous system.

It should therefore be expected that the outcomes will be extremely variable and highly contingent on the background and predispositions of the user, the type(s) and dose(s) of the drug(s), the context of the usage of the drug (including related psychotherapy) and other events, practices and influences in the individual's life.

That being said, I have noticed, a general trend towards:

- Less combativeness, agitation and aggression. There is less tendency to want to engage in petty squabbles or incite your own (or others) negative emotional reactions.

- Openness to more creative ideas. A cynical take would be that you become more suggestible/easily influenced (and this may be a feature also). There definitely seams to be a new willingness to consider new viewpoints, new ideas and new options. You may find yourself re-engaging in old intellectual pursuits, exploring previously unsolved problems and/or using previously unrelated topics/fields in conjunction.

- In a similar vein, you may also find yourself exploring spiritual/philosophical topics, especially those related to compassion, empathy, group cohesion and 'reduced ego'. This probably looks an awful lot like hippiness lol. This may include rethinking political, social and economic attitudes.

- Generally more positive thoughts and emotions (positive valence). This often follows a period of emotional and intellectual turmoil (which may loosely coincide with a 'bad trip' at the time of ingestion or subsequently, during a period of integration). This generally, but not always, results in a long term overall improvement in mood and overall outlook.

- Psychedelics may help in getting through/integrating past trauma. This may be part of what underlies the above. Many of us live with the after-effects of trauma and being able to work past this can be life-changing. This may be a traumatic process in itself, but sometimes psychedelics facilitate approaching these issues in ways that were not previously possible. IMHO many of the most severely affected by trauma are not even aware of the fact that they're affected and this manifests in a plethora of negative outcomes. Psychedelics in a positively reinforced environment (ideally with therapy) can help tremendously here.

There are a lot of really great resources online for anyone who is interested (regardless of your level of personal experience or opinion):

Highly recommend qualiacomputing.com and qualiaresearchinstitute.org (along with the group's online videos), especially for the HN crowd looking for a more multifaceted, more 'scientifically rigorous' (I use the term loosely here lol, but I think you'll get what I mean).

I'd also recommend some of the lectures on the Oxford Psychedelic Society's website: https://oxpsysoc.org/#things

I hope you find this helpful. Psychedelics are a complex topic but overall I believe they have immense potential to help many people, including but not limited to the following. I strongly encourage anyone reading this to learn more.

- Pain syndromes, including intractable, severe, pain syndromes like cluster headaches. - Resolving trauma (including but not limited to PTSD). - Psychological disorders, including depression and anxiety. - Overcoming addictions.

I’m a pretty stoic and cynical person after being used as a doormat growing up in narcissistic family. I hope I don’t lose this perspective/lens of not trusting others if I tried psilocybin as my family would take advantage of my altruistic nature as a free labor resource to do work for them if I let my guard down and try to be helpful.

I think there are some other rare side effects, like vision abnormalities.

The proper way to phrase their findings is that psilocybin has a favorable safety profile and should be studied in more detail with larger numbers of participants.

> It's like when people claimed that marijuana was not addictive.

I quit both weed and nicotine and only the nicotine was the problem to shift. Weed can be habitual, sure but there's a huge difference in physical and habitual addiction.

> It's like when people claimed that marijuana was not addictive.

Marijuana is not physically addictive. That was and is also the reasonable claim made by reasonable people. Then lots of people seems to have conflated this claim with psychological addictiveness.

I claim that HN isn't physically addictive. The fact that it is psychologically addictive doesn't amount to me "pretending".

Marijuana is addictive, I know that many people will deny it, just like they say it's not unhealthy to smoke, it is, there is definitely harm done.

That said it's almost impossible to abuse mushrooms, there just isn't a desire to redo them often and it doesn't work well anyway. I've never heard of someone being addicted to psilocybin.

Sure while you're on them it can be very intoxicating, and temporary loss of speech abilities and all kinds of horrible feelings might occur, particularly in the beginning. Usually you feel better about it later.

I think it has been shown to be the least harmful drug in studies and has proven itself to be not very harmful to people or society.

> Yes, taking it (in the right conditions) can benefit you a lot.

What are these benefits?

Your experience is an anecdotal exception, not the norm.

I encourage you to actually read up on the pharmacology of psilocybin: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Psilocybin_mushrooms.

> But pretending there is zero detrimental effects is wishful thinking and will lead to people abusing the thing, believing it's just funny candy, and they may end up damaged.

I think you're mostly reacting to the framing of this headline, which isn't accurately stating the finding of the study.

It would be more accurate to say the study "did not find any short or long term negative effects" which is not the same as a positive assertion that such effects do not exist. This is a similar level of safety as you might find with aspirin or acetaminophen - both of which could be fairly described as not having short or long term negative effects and which can have serious health consequences if used incorrectly [edit: I said "if abused" which is the wrong way to put it].

> There is no such thing as a free lunch. Powerful products have powerful effects, and this means some harm can exist.

There's nothing in this study that contradicts this idea - because studies like this don't claim to detect every form of harm. Instead, they look for particular forms of relatively objective harm. Another example to consider would be SSRIs: they tend to increase suicide attempts when patients start taking them. That's the kind of harm this study would find! But - even if a patient doesn't experience suicidal ideation - no doctor would suggest that it logically follows that patient should certainly go on SSRIs. The choice is always more complex than that.

I'd read the study conclusions again, in particular the dosages and circumstances:

> "Psilocybin, in 10mg or 25mg doses, has no short-term or long-term detrimental effects in healthy people... The research, published in The Journal of Psychopharmacology, is an essential first step in demonstrating the safety and feasibility of psilocybin – a psychedelic drug isolated from the Psilocybe mushroom – for use within controlled settings alongside talking therapy as a potential treatment for a range of mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and PTSD.'

Notice that very large doses were not studied, and the studies were conducted under controlled settings, with one-on-one support from a trained psychotherapist, in groups of up to six people simultaneously.

As the study was not flawed, then, under these conditions, psilocybin certainly seems like a safe and effective option for treatment.

> I doubt this, and I think

Wow man, can't wait to read your peer reviewed study on the topic!

I'm going to give this thread a few more hours before decide to quit reading Hacker News comments forever.

Totally agree. No free lunch especially in psychedelics. That being said , great to see the research

Mushroom drawl is a pretty classical tell of usage, but I wouldn't consider it a de facto detriment.

For some people, being a little slower to speak means they're more careful with their thoughts, less likely to be carried away by engagement or perpetuate useless ideas, and more prone to patient reflection.

Mushrooms can't magically confer any of those skills, but some things are easier to learn when we're not leaning on only what comes most naturally to us.

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of abject confusion in this realm as fifty mind numbing years of the US Drug War sponsored by RAID Shadow Legends has rendered any independent attempt at scientific validation of the conditions applications and hazards of most recreational narcotics a fever dream of retraction, deflection, and outright lies.

For 50 years psychedelic drugs were the devils dingaling and always accompanied by a well-wishing naysayer who insisted the other shoe was filled with the cloven hoof of Mephistopheles himself. This is quality peer-reviewed research, the same kind used to ostensibly validate things like hydrocodone and Flintstones vitamins...but this sort of thing is happening alongside the haggard burro of western drug policy which makes it all the more precious. Any knowledge of the conditions and terms related to something like this as it pertains to PTSD is invaluable as 30 years ago such seditious mumblings would get you branded a communist hippie.

so yeah, terms and conditions apply and just as with everything else, theres a ladder of risk, but castigating the machine shop for their nefarious chainsaw sure to rain terror upon the good fae of the woods is a little silly.

I think what most people are referring to with cannabis, in terms of it not being addictive, is physiological dependence. Cannabis has very little in terms of withdrawal symptoms, and thus has low propensity towards physiological dependence. I’ve heard people state depression for a few days as one of the few withdrawal symptoms for heavy users. So while the people you may know may be addicted, it’s not because of a physiological dependence but a mental one.

> marijuana was not addictive

It's "not addictive" in the sense that physical withdrawal symptoms are minimal compared to booze, nicotine, and other drugs. But you can make a daily habit out of anything pleasurable and ruin your life around it. I've seen people ruin their lives with both gaming and gambling habits.

> There is no such thing as a free lunch.

This doesn't mean anything. It's not evidence of anything. You can't go to court and argue there's no such thing as a free lunch.

There's free lunches out there, literally, somebody puts a literal free lunch out next to the dumpster for the less fortunate all the time. There's losers and winners with no reason to be found for why. Some guy buys Bitcoin at 5 bucks, becomes a billionaire and doesn't turn into the archetypal power-mad lunatic burning his fortunes on lambos.

Here's the actual woo: desperate attempts to overlay patterns of meaning to a universe that does not subscribe to Abrahamic values.

Some people will take psychedelics and have enduring negative impressions, sometimes for the rest of their life. Others, like myself, will use it to shapechange out of a history of abuse by their parents. No one can know which of the cards they'll pick.

But I can tell you, from the many I have directly known to take it, a fraction succumbed to permanent, negative, distorted beliefs. Some got a free lunch, some few did not.

> Every time I took it, I could feel my speech ability to decline for a while.

I would bet big money it will do the opposite to at least some people having speech impairment conditions before they take it.

Headline reader here but it does say “detrimental” which I admit may include said personality traits in some eyes but I would expect “detrimental” to mean side-effects that actually negatively impact quality of life.

is that a detrimental effect?

> Psilocybin has no short- or long-term __detrimental__ effects in healthy people

Can you help me connect the dots on how these are "clearly a neurological effect"?

Uh, they did say "detrimental effects." Those don't sound detrimental to me.

In fact, knowing as we do that psilocybin has a significant impact on reducing depression for months after a single dose - including for otherwise untreatable major depression - it sounds like those folks may have had some low-level baseline depressive symptoms. [edit] Not to the point of being clinical of course. [1]

> I assert it is detrimental. There is a "mystic" "spiritual" shift as well, that I really dont think is grounded in reality. Just because current science cant measure these changes dont mean they dont happen.

I hate to break this to you, but mysticism and spirituality isn't grounded in reality no matter what.

[edit] > I would also describe the effect as "loopy"

While high, totes. After, no so much.

[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/...

Is it possible the people who regularly use shrooms are already predisposed to those traits?

Oh no! Not peace and love!

You assert evidence of a clear neurological affect, and then edit your post to say that science can't measure it, and it must be "mystic" or "spiritual".

It's an unfortunate feature of our culture that a shift towards peace, love and empathy is perceived as detrimental.

You think that peace and love is detrimental? I assert we could use more of it.

Note, I wouldn't say that such peace and love is blind--people are still very much grounded in reality--but the ability for compassion and empathy is increased. Perhaps you see compassion as a weakness?

I think that's the point.

Isn't the high level plan for this treatment: 1)The psilocybin breaks down the patients ego and 2) the psycho therapist molds it hopefully for the better?

"people who have done a lot of mushrooms..." In my experience those people also take just about anything. How could one say it was the psilocybin

The Aztecs were very fond of mushrooms but definitely not hippies. You’re describing a mimetic cultural phenomenon facilitated by the neuroplasticity the drug confers.

Purely anecdotal. Have you controlled for the correlation between those personality traits and the wish to explore drugs like psilocybin?

Agreed. It would be a terrible crime to market a substance that causes permanent personality shifts in a direction not necessarily wanted as a "magic cure" for depression, anxiety, and whatever other manifestation of unpleasantness in life. And that's exactly what we're doing now.

Lobotomy was marketed as a magic cure for all sorts of psychological problems too. There is no free lunch. There's no quick and easy way to "fix" someone.

I'm a fan of Psilocybin but anyone who has been around for awhile in a psychedelic culture like my home town knows people who did too many mushrooms. LSD is a thing in itself: acid casualties are a real thing.

Thinking reality makes sense is pretty loopy too.

There was an interesting article in slatestarcodex that statet that the prime effekt of psychodelics is reducing primers. This can have negativ consequenz on healthy people that take psyhcodelics. A) because primers are your past so somehow they are you. If the primers get erased your personality is gettig erased. B) if primers are reduced they are near primers that arent that evolved and those primers could suck. Usualy there is filter in our brain that prohibits us from thinking dumb shit like the world is flat. But if those primers are reduced, how should one know that the world doesnt end at the horizont?

I have friends that take ketamin lsd mushrooms etc regulary and they dont seem to have a classical paychosis but something else… the superb ability to believe every shit someone posts on social media. Honestly they are gone and thats this primer effect.

Btw did some shrooms 2 times and it was great

Except the ones that go on murder sprees. I guess they converge somewhere else.

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

It's hard to estimate effects like this based on your personal experiences. People who do drugs like mushrooms tend to be a certain way: hippies, left-wing, creative and "open". Unless you're performing rigorous experiments with large samples, it's hard to separate that out as a confounder.

> "Anyone who has spent significant time around people who have done a lot of mushrooms knows..."

As someone in this group, I strongly disagree. The "consensus" you're appealing to doesn't exist.

> I assert it is detrimental. There is a "mystic" "spiritual" shift as well, that I really dont think is grounded in reality. Just because current science cant measure these changes dont mean they dont happen.

The effects of both psilocybin and spiritual beliefs on individual health outcomes is an active, ongoing topic of research. The assertion that there's something intangibly wrong with the mental lives of (of whom exactly? people who do shrooms? Or do you include people who do yoga or practice meditation in this group? What about people who attend Catholic mass?) that "current science can't measure" is precisely the sort of baseless nonsense well-operationalized research is designed to eliminate, so we can rationalize our laws and healthcare policies.

The plural of anecdote is not data. What you are saying is that there is a correlation, but the causation could be any number of tangentially related things. e.g. a self re-enforcing subculture, predisposition for substance abuse, or tainted sourcing.

For what it's worth, spiritual teachers believe psychedelics open people up to spiritual realities. That's pretty much the life story Ram Das (ex psych professor). Orthodox Christian priests tend to say it's spiritually dangerous akin to using a Ouija board or something - they would prefer people use safe methods like prayer to explore the spiritual world.

Scientists could probably measure negative psychological effects, anyways, as you say.

Your personal anecdotes, no matter how significant or varied, don't meaningfully contradict this research. This research happened in a controlled environment. Your friends doing mushrooms and likely other drugs in a recreational setting is different. Science can measure the changes you're talking about, but your friends weren't doing science.

A lot of sibling comments here questioning the parent comment's definition of detrimental. Psychedelic drugs can absolutely have a permanent detrimental effect on people.

There is a difference between a positive emotional experience and a warped "revelation" that gives somebody the impression that they're privy to some universal truth or meaning. If the latter happens enough, the results range from the person being pretty fundamentally changed (less like depressed vs. not depressed, more like somebody is wearing a skinsuit of somebody you used to know) to them being almost completely fried/detached from reality. These people may be happy in their own reality, but it's very painful to watch it happen to them.

Headlines like this article's are best left unsaid. A single (or rarely administered) 10-25mg dose in a highly controlled environment may be reasonably safe, and the headline may be true in the strictest sense, but it's going to work out about as well as the "marijuana is not addictive" line of thinking has.

The dose makes the poison.

The study was testing at 10mg and 25mg which are TINY (microdoses)

Your experience appears to be with people who take macrodoses repeatedly.

I'm not sure these two situations are comparable.

Possibly a heavy selection bias, don't you think?

Shrooms are illegal almost everywhere, or at least not very popular. I assume there is a very significant filter on which type of personalities seek these experiences (unlike e.g. trying alcohol or cannabis, as those are accessible and culturally integrated everywhere).

I think people with those tendencies are simply more likely to use mushrooms. I've used them plenty and I'm still the typical HackerNews cynical nerd that expresses skepticism towards everything.

Ok, we've revised the title above to try to make it more accurate about what's being reported here.

> You can tell they think it's super deep and meaningful, but for us sober folk it just seems a little nutty. Stuff like: "We are the UNIVERSE. For the universe is within us." or "The Matrix is a system. That system is our enemy. The very minds of the people that need to be saved are not ready to be unplugged. They will fight to protect their truth, as they should. The saving can only come from within."

Sounds exactly like what "us sober folks" would say after an intensive meditation retreat in the Vipassana tradition. Maybe the entheogen users are just taking a convenient shortcut.

Do you reject the idea that you and I are both the universe experiencing itself? You seem overly concerned with how often people decide to engage in the positive and apparently harmless practice of indulging in the idea. Are you this scrutinizing toward other spiritual practices such as Christianity or Islam? Not trying to do a whataboutism or anything, just trying to get a good read on exactly how humorless you are.

And anecdotally i've found shroom use more common among my smartest friends.

And the people posting antivax facebook memes or whatever are a totally different set of people.

Typically they receive something like methylphenidate, and they are psilocybin-naïve so they don't know which they got.

I have read that niacin is used as a placebo, it has a very noticeable physical effect but no psychedelic properties.

you can gain psilocybin benefits without taking enough of it to trip

short answer, no.

longer answer, dose-response varies, subjects don't necessarily know what the effects should be, or may not be able to identify the experience, and also it's pretty easy to get yourself into an autocthonous psychedelic headspace, especially if you expect "something" to happen

It's obvious, I've participated in a such a study (not psilocybin). It has to be done though

Exactly what I was thinking. “In healthy people”… how do you know you don’t have latent schizophrenia?

Slightly related https://old.reddit.com/r/HPPD/

are you sure he was unaware of any mental illnesses?

how did he prepare for the trip? was he familiar with set & setting and other such recommendations?

Yeah, a lot of people try to ascribe a causal link from drugs to mental illness when it’s probably the other way around. People undiagnosed but suffering from early stage mental illness often self-medicate, combined with the fact that there’s a lot of overlap in the ages where people experiment with drugs and when mental illness typically presents itself enough to lead to a diagnosis.

how do you retroactively determine that he always had it? A psychotic break could be the root cause of bipolar disorder, couldnt it?

Are you able to share the dosage your friend took?

Right. I'm not anti-recreational-drug-use, but this assertion that gets repeated all the time feels damn close to a tautology.

"The drug didn't cause you to go crazy. You just had underlying craziness that never manifested before using the drug and might never have manifested if you never used the drug."

Consider this my raised eyebrow.

Even if it's really technically true, it's effectively a vacuous and unfalsifiable statement when it comes to an individual person, and one can't use the information at all when estimating the risk of their potential recreational activity.

I had a friend in high school who took mushrooms and said they never felt like the same person since then. That statement was made in high school and reiterated in their late 20s. I don't know what dosage they took. I don't know if they had other mental health conditions, though it seemed like they had some degree of alcoholism.

I have dealt with depression and have my eye on some form of Psilocybin treatment as a future option. But am weary due to my friend's experience. So I'm waiting for more expertise to be developed and the treatment to be validated and consequences quantified.

Similar experience here, but with a different hallucinogen. It has forever changed me, so I wanted to share. My close friend had a psychotic break due to daily marijuana use and is now on psychiatric drugs to control symptoms. She was always creative, but she could tell the difference between fantasy and reality. During the break, it was like she was rolling constantly and couldn't stop. She was hearing voices. Thinking that 2D images were alive. For months on end. She was ranting, crying, acting uncharacteristically pompous, then crumbling into a heap of shame. This is a professional middle-aged person who was living a full life.

My understanding is that for folks who are genetically predisposed, a life trigger can manifest in a mental health condition that likely never would have surfaced. Triggers may include in utero trauma, child abuse or chemical imbalance due to stress or controlled substances. Hallucinogens can trigger a serious mental health condition in an individual who may have lived an otherwise mentally stable life. Not unlike needing to watch cholesterol in a family who suffers from heart disease, perhaps. So, yeah, when I read "... in healthy people" it made me go hmmmm.

But still, psilocybin is not marijuana. And this is great news for those suffering from treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.

I'd always thought 1g was a single dose. Maybe the people around me are lightweights...

(legalization so we can accurately dose these things yada yada)

It really does depend upon what strain and type you're talking about.

There's a fundamental world of difference between a gram of dried Cyanescens and a gram of fresh Cubensis, for instance.

I don’t know who came up with the idea that an eighth should be considered a “standard dose”, but whoever it was, is an idiot. So many people I know have had way too intense of experiences and were turned off from mushrooms.

I’ve had ego death, where I had no idea who “I” was, from an 8th of good mushrooms. That’s generally not the experience most people are looking for. It’s like saying 50mg of edibles is a standard dose (as opposed to 10).

Nowadays, I, along with most people I know, take like 1-2 grams at most. Usually I stay around the 1.5g mark.

For readers of this comment a reminder: the study only covers a single take of 10mg or 25mg doses. In case you do that twice with any interval between takes, even years apart, the study results do not apply to you anymore.

> something we don't bother preventing with Nutmeg or Dramamine despite some pretty nasty potential outcomes

That's because Nutmeg or Dramamine don't have as strong of an incentive to abuse.

I was terrified of HPPD when I was first dabbling in psychedelics. 15 years and many trips later I notice the occasional perceptual oddity, but I feel like this is how my perception has always worked and pre-drug-use-me was just ignoring the debug output.

Not to diminish any accounts of HPPD to the contrary, maybe I'm just lucky.

What was your dosage? Was it a single dose? Age at the time? any other drugs were in play? Have your HPPD faded over time?

I’m curious and if you don’t mind answering.

Those are just popular topics of any discussion. Since other "more important" topics are banned via rules (ie politics).

Damn kids and their suicide pods. Back in my day, we hung ourselves using a rope and we liked it that way.

I explicitly want all three things you list. I also would like to see Open Borders ;) https://openborders.info

For psychedelic drug decriminalization: the alternative is status quo, which results in tremendous amount of suffering (thousands of people in jail who are then disenfranchised by their "criminal" record).

You vaguely gesture at the possible good outcomes people like me want, but then boldly claim "that isn't the outcome [we] will get". I'm puzzled why you have such a pessimistic view of it all.

Portugal decriminalized all drugs 20 years ago and they are doing great (by comparison to surrounding countries that have not). Assisted suicide has become legal in several countries with presumably no negative outcomes you are warning us against. UBI has been successful and loved by Alaskans for decades. What problems are you worried about?

You forgot static web blogs.

Seeing patterns in unconnected policy positions. You sound like a conspiracy theorist. Are you feeling paranoid?

/s

“Stain”

Stain has a negative connotation in your context. Maybe adopt less opinionated language.

It can color your mind/soul in positive directions if you take great care in your setting and intention.

if done recklessly it can potentially color it in negative ways.

With a small chance to bring out other forms of latent mental illness.

If you do ever decide to attempt go slowly. I’d recommend going cautiously into these experiences starting at 0.8g. Also have a sober mature person who is experience with shrooms around just in case.

It’s shrooms is possibly the kind of drug that may help loosen firmly held beliefs in the right setting and mind set.

And yet it's still class A. The study has been ignored entirely by the government

There are several in progress. Some run by private for profit companies.

Stay tuned.

It's varies in strength but that corresponds to about 1-2.5g of dried mushrooms. So a normal amount.

From my casual reading of these journal articles over the past several years, it's easy to make such statements about "healthy" people. Any underlying psychiatric disease discovered _after_ psilocybin can be retroactively applied to the participant.

"Oh, that guy had underlying bipolar disorder and therefore wasn't healthy."

> Live without the delusion. forever.

Sounds like a pretty hard delusion right there.

If you know someone who buys weed illegally they might have a source.

Darknet.

A ridiculous amount of drugs are just delivered using usps.

I grew mine from a small kit from the Netherlands. I’m in the EU.

It’s legal to grow them for decorative purposes here but not consume them.lol.

There's no surefire way to estimate the actual weight of psilocybin save for extracting it chemically. It can vary widely between species, between flushes, and even between individual fruits.

Dried product varies pretty widely in strength, even from stem to cap. Things like strain and spore lineage also contribute to strength of the dried product.

A good place to find more info is here: https://www.shroomery.org/

They are using synthetic psilocybin. It would be impossible to make a translation between grams of dried vs. synthetic. Different species have diff content, liberty cap vs. penis envy etc. also stalks vs. caps typically differ in str.

You can look at the default values in the Shroomery Dosage Calculator

https://www.shroomery.org/6257/Magic-Mushroom-Dosage-Calcula...

Meh. People have all sorts of beliefs about the afterlife. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Unless you know somebody who came back from the dead and reported on it?

I never took any drugs until my mid 50s. Part of the motivation was to experience this spirituality that others report that I've never experienced. I'm a cautious person by nature, so I did a series of stepped doses, spaced a few weeks apart, of various lysergimides and tryptamines. In short: LSD was quite interesting and not at all spiritual for me. 4-aco-dmt (a close relative to psilocybin) was entirely different: much more dreamy, confusing, and it gave me a brief taste of that spiritual feeling. All in all, over a couple years, I did about 20 experiments, and have done only small doses twice in the past two years. I'm not sure if I'll do either again, as I probably have found all I care to see from them.

Experiencing things first-hand has only reinforced my prior beliefs in a material world. If a simple, small molecule can to drastically change your mood and perception, it seems all the more clear that there is no magic. On the flip side, people who were prone to believe in the woo experience the same things I did, but because of their prior framing found confirmation of their own prior beliefs as well.

I don't think you have anything to fear should the opportunity present itself to you.

The main benefit for me was this: I'm very good, too good, at compartmentalizing my emotions. My wife suffers from anxiety and depression. Having experienced hours-long states where my emotions ran loose that my intellect was unable to reign in, I can now empathize, and not just sympathize, a bit with my wife's experiences.

I've taken it multiple times. Science is still the basis for my beliefs. I know I'm n=1, but I'm also a counter example.

Sorry you have such a reference class. I think the "lose grip with reality" is only temporary - the next day (and even earlier) you have memories of what went on, but your mind is back to "normal". I've had numerous psychedelic experiences (blissful, terrifying, etc) with both LSD and mushrooms, and none have fundamentally changed what I think about the world (believing the general scientific consensus about atoms, etc).

What drugs like this can do is make you more empathetic and understanding, less rigid/dogmatic. I strongly recommend people (with no history of mental problems) try low-dose psychedelics (after careful research, with a great set and setting, and a trip-sitter) and then consider standard-dose psychedelic amounts.

I'm a psychonaut, so I enjoy weird states of mind as experiences. I feel like there is a lot to learn from having had them. An excellent book you could read on this topic is How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan.

https://www.amazon.com/How-to-Change-Your-Mind-audiobook/dp/...

I’m grew up in a Buddhist family.I flip between agnostic and at times atheism. Science is my compass.

I’d be curious to know how much you understood the background of the beliefs held by the people you’ve talked to.

If I had similar thoughts about the idea of reincarnation after a trip. Am I a nonsensical person?

It sounded like your aversion is to mystical thinking or spiritual thoughts?

let me know if I’m too off base here.

But the thing is, only just because we can't prove it now, doesn't mean it's false. You sound like the people who would have believed that the earth is center of the universe in the middle aged. And most people thought that, even "scientist". So you would have been perfectly right to believe it. You would not sound crazy. But yet wrong. What i want to tell you, don't be ignorant and don't form opinions on stuff you don't understand. Try it in lower dose. Imagine sober real life like folders browsing back and forth. But on shrooms (or LSD, DMT etc) it's like viewing a whole folder tree. You are able to make connections to thoughts you never would have connected in real life, because they are not directly related. So called "Ahh" moments. I will never give up drugs because of that greater understanding of own knowledge. Remember, knowing is not understanding. Such drugs allow you to truly understand. And as a side note, i had the same view as you when I was young. Now i know that i just was ignorant. In the end of the day, fuck what others say. You need to think for yourself and understand the world for yourself !

Thanks for your viewpoint on the underlying reason why this study exists.

How do you stay informed in this space?

What companies are on your watchlist?

Nope.

The study used synthetic psilocybin. In some estimate I've found online (I don't know how accurate) it claims 10mg is about 1.5 grams of dried shrooms of common varieties.

I suspect you're thinking of 3.5g amount - which is a typical amount of magic mushrooms to consume. The study is using psilocybin directly.

Wikipedia states "The concentrations of psilocin and psilocybin ... [is] 0.37–1.30% (dry weight) in the whole mushroom".

Assuming about 0.5% concentration, 3.5g of dry mushrooms is about 18mg of psilocybin/psilocin.