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Comment by RamblingCTO | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people have a lot of negative stuff to say, but my take is: if you do psychedelics, you need to do the work and you need a firm ground before that. We have research that it might help with PTSD, depression, etc. but it's not like you just take it and you're done. It's a powerful substance and with power comes responsibility. I like to think of it more as an enhancer as to what's inside your head anyways. If that's fucked already, how are psychedelics gonna help you?

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You're right. There are a lot of misconceptions because the majority of people has never tried strong psychedelic drugs like psilocybin or LSD, so their information is based entirely on hearsay. Both in the negative sense ("you can permanently 'fry' your brain", "you'll jump out of the window", etc), as well as positive myths like that it's going to solve all your mental issues.

I'm not fully sure regarding the last sentence though. The important thing to know for those who have never experienced it and who have issues that could come out during the trip is that you need to care A LOT about set and setting. You should have an experienced person whom you fully trust and who can guide you through the experience. Don't do it on your own when you're in a bad state, that's pretty much the worst way to take psychedelics and basically asking for the trip to go wrong. And you'll want to avoid strangers as well unless you're super extroverted maybe.

Also, and that's my personal take, don't sign up to questionable retreats or scientific studies/therapies conducted by self-proclaimed experts who have never taken it themselves. Just because someone has a degree in psychology - a questionable science to begin with when you look at all the failed attempts to replicate the findings - it doesn't mean they understand how it feels to be on a psychedelic trip.

If you have mental health issues and you try to self medicate with psychedelics just know you’re playing with fire. I’ve had one positive-ish and three negative-ish ones myself. I get a lot of anxiety and mania for some reason on the second half which tends to make me kind of spiral and there’s sometimes not much to grab onto when you’re deep in it. If you really must do it alone , having something like a benzo on hand can help if things go off the rails.

Psychedelics weaken your emotional associations. Which can be helpful and/or unhelpful.

It's not a matter of more work.

Whatever feeling you had about this chair has changed. It use to represent a memory or a feeling from childhood. That's changed or is gone for better or worse.

That's how to perceive how it works.

If you are 'fucked' because you can't move on it will help. If you feel a lack of connections to things/people it could help form new ones or reduce what you currently have.

Removing emotional memories can be scary. Removing PTSD memories can be freeing.

These negative emotions helped us survive before, but in this artificial world there needs to be artificial solutions

In the past, a lot fewer people lived until they were “old”.

So, the deleterious effects of trauma emotions “mattered less”. If you can never sleep through the night without waking up screaming, that is a bad effect. But if you only have a year or two of lifespan left, then you experience less “penalty” than if you had lots of years left.

Now, we ship boys off to war at 18, or even younger. They get PTSD in war, and then live 50+ years afterwards with the bad effects.

Evolution isn't "intelligent design, the natural process".

There are plenty of traits that provide us with no advantage, and some that never have.

Just because our bodies and our brains do something, doesn't mean it's useful.

with 'work' I mean integration work afterwards and preparation beforehand. you just gotta be able to handle what's coming imho

I walked in psychedellics a bit fucked, though id been doing the work to get better. I was simply at an impasse with no way forward. For me, psychedellics shook things up in a way that allowed for a level of introspection and wrangling of the self the allowed for meaningful change. For example, i went from hopeless alcoholic with little to no positive outlook in life to having a healthy relationship with alcohol (and other substances) meaning general abstainence but socially acceptable levels of partaking where appropriate.

This is of course not everyones story, many i know who took similar substances ended up in much worse positions.Some had even been doing the work to get better also. For the time being I think theres an element of luck, but i hope we figure out how to remove the luck component and make it a science.

The way I'd explain it Is that whatever loss function the mind uses to optimize the personality was stuck in a poor local optima and psychedellics knocked that marble right loose. There was a time i was a bit 'lost' in it all but i was able to get back on track in a reasonable timeframe and through the change in perspectove and way of thinking kept improving well past were id gotten to prior to that.

Despite what positive things i have to say about it, i wouldnt recommend it, unless it truly is your last option. i spent years with psychologists and paychiatrists prior to that. Ive seen many go down the path of the illicit and not get better but much much worse, and more that went down professional help based pathways who got better more consistently, and got worse far more rarely.

> We have research that it might help with PTSD, depression, etc. but it's not like you just take it and you're done.

Worth noting the research is on psilocybin with supportive psychotherapy, not just take some mushrooms you got from a guy and have at it.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/...

There's a good documentary about the John Hopkins research on treating drug resistant depression with psilocybin which unfortunately isn't available any more via the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w7bq

From my limited personal experience and having attended various psychedelic talks and integration workshops etc., set, setting and (post) support are all really key to help turn what can be a potentially life changing/affirming/challenging event into a beneficial one.

Exactly what I was thinking about! There are some nice studies being done in Switzerland with a trip + 7 (I believe) sessions before and after

So, take some mushrooms from a guy, lie down on the couch, and tell him about your mother.

No matter how good one's ground is, lots of LSD in a city apartment will likely drive you crazy.

I never have had a bad trip, except for that time I took 800 mu-g GG in my tiny apartment. I became insanely restless, waking up 12 hours later trying to open the window to get to more natural environment. My lights were dropped on the floor, as well as plenty of water, broken electronics and ruined papers.

Since then I've learned to use music and earplugs; keep the windows open; have high CRI bulbs; keep lots of plants; and to never hesistate going to an ice shower when feeling like a confused and mentally stressed ape.

The level of control one wants, I believe, is roughly the same as beating a nightmare disorder with lucid dreaming. One ALSO must have familiarity with "foundations" of the world, or else they will end up doing dumb stuff with dumb beliefs. By foundations I mean sort of at least grasping that it's all arbitary and then building what you want on That.

What if psychedelics are actually not gates to an enhanced consciousness for the happy few?

What if actually your teacher was right, and they’re just dumb intoxicants that have no upside and a small chance of ruining your life?

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