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Comment by TaupeRanger | Hacker News Reader

That is a claim that would require a study to confirm. No such study has been done to my knowledge.

Studies have been done! Here is the latest one, for psilocybin. The mystical experiences are deeply related to therapeutic outcome https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.8416...

Here is the first one I am aware of: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/. So 14 years of evidence backing up this claim.

These mystical experiences are part of the outcome, not an environmental variable. There maybe anecdotal or some other kind of evidence in the sense of what the effect of the supporting environment is on the long term.

this thread is all about the “trip” ie the mystical experience aspect, that presumably the “plasticity-specific” novel psychedeloids do not occasion because they are not considered part of the physiological outcome but merely a drug experience. that is what the comment I replied was countering: GP claimed more study was needed to say the trip IS the treatment, and I’m saying the research has been done.

No, none of these studies compares drugs that induce the supposed neuroplasticity effect without the trip to normal hallucinogenics. The claim was that the trip is what makes the drugs work, but we haven't investigated that question yet because the new drugs aren't available.

There are good salience-based reasons to think the effect is important too. The trip is what makes these drugs work, at least. It seems implausible to me that the trip is merely some threshhold side effect that gets triggered with higher likelihood at the therapeutic doses. At therapeutic doses you’d expect to see a lot more effective non-mystical trips if the trip was an ancillary addon. But, they’ve modified ibogaine in such a fasion: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33299186/. So we will see!

Research on psychotherapeutic use of hallucinogens is done on this premise. At this point I believe it would be unethical to perform such a study. It would risk exposing subjects to psychological harm.

Edit: on the premise that the environment is crucial for the outcome. This means creating a safe comfortable environment. Maybe with these new drugs will show otherwise in time.

These are the current guidelines https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18593734/

This is like asking for a study to prove you really love your children.

Anyone asking either doesn't have any or needs help.

Not at all. There are plenty of ways to study self reported effects. You'd just have to compare reports from those who experienced a trip vs not, or find another clever method of controlling for the trip experience.

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