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Comment by pfkurtz | Hacker News Reader

LSD:

Multiple times I did it with others and profoundly deepened my relationship with those individuals.

Another time I did it by myself and saw the face of evil and I've never been so terrified, but I survived and wouldn't change a thing.

I don't think any of that can be captured by whatever neuro-binding effect is being mimicked by these designed molecules.

I also took antidepressants for awhile once and it was diet and exercise and commitment to changing my life and talking to a therapist that was what helped; but I know others who need to take pills every day or things go bad. I wish there was a short treatment for people who need that.

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The effects used to be classified as a "model psychosis" in the 1950's by psychiatrists. That classification was simply dismissed by the government as it implied LSD had useful research properties: allowing individuals to experience the effects of mental illness for 8 hours and then sobering up.

The government was adamant that LSD and psychedelics had to have no legitimate medical or scientific value, and they had to be banned. To be fair they had escaped controlled use and were being used as "party drugs".

But anyway, it sure can be a hella scary and strange experience, and not always pleasant. Handle with care.

> I don't think any of that can be captured by whatever neuro-binding effect is being mimicked by these designed molecules

Agreed, it sound like they do not cause any hallucinations, so you would likely not "see the face of evil".

> it was diet and exercise and commitment to changing my life and talking to a therapist that was what helped;

Speaking from my armchair, from what I understand about clinical depression, these are the things that someone who is not depressed can do because they "crave" them. For people who are depressed, there is a (possibly intermittent) neurological imbalance that is preventing them from craving these things which would otherwise keep them functioning normally. While it may be possible to power through the depression, and do these things until the imbalance is resolved, I would argue that this is only due to a temporary break or recession of their depressive symptoms, something that an effective antidepressant should aim to do.

I'm not claiming my view is true, I'm looking for feedback on how correct/incorrect my view is.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 this paper was published recently, shows there's actually a lot less evidence for the "depression is caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance" hypothesis than people tend to believe.

That study seems pretty focused on serotonin. I guess you're suggesting that most of the science tries to link depression to serotonin?

There's a wide range of symptom-clusters called "depression" and other mental health issues that pair nicely with feeling terrible.

If it's not that bad, and/or if you have sufficient willpower or support you can change your life. But I wouldn't describe it as powering through. More like finding the capacity to grow and change; depression is neither monolith nor destiny.

Other people NEED modern pharmaceuticals to live full, functional lives.

Interesting that people seem to focus on the hallucination claim, not the deepening of interpersonal relationships claim, which is the much more important result, from my perspective, and the part really not replicable with a pill, because it requires an intense shared experience.

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