Human brain changes after first psilocybin use | Hacker News Reader

Human brain changes after first psilocybin use

nature.com

30 pointskarma_daemon15 comments

Microdosing can literally be a lifesaver if you have chronic depression or PTSD. It's been widely documented and there's tons of companies working on this specifically as a new form of treatement.

> Microdosing can literally be a lifesaver

> All effects are exclusive to 25 mg psilocybin; no effects occur with a 1 mg psilocybin placebo.

Have they figured out a way around the interactions with SSRIs yet?

I think the issue there is that the ssri dull some of the receptors that psilocybin act upon.

If you are on them, you can still get positive results, but your baseline for microdose might be higher. Be careful if try… go slow, follow proper harm reduction measures.

Not a doctor but I might go further and say possibly avoid altogether until you come off SSRI.

I have a recent experience with MDMA, a substance that also interacts with those receptors. A friend and I both tried MDMA, not first realizing that one of us felt almost no effect because of an ongoing Lexapro prescription. We were well supervised in this endeavor, but I can imagine a more unrestricted experience in which you take way more than a recreational dose by accident.

By the way, you might need those SSRIs!

What do you consider a micro dose? The article states: “All effects are exclusive to 25 mg psilocybin; no effects occur with a 1 mg psilocybin placebo”

5 grams is considered a heroic dose (e.g. the dose where you are likely to experience things like ego death).

Around 2 grams is considered a "museum dose" or "social dose" (e.g. it's enough to change your perceptions but not so much that you are unable to operate).

So 25 mg is a fairly low dose while 1 mg is very low.

5 grams of mushrooms is not the same as 5 grams of psilocybin. When taking about mg, I think they mean psilocybin. When talking about grams, it's mushrooms

I looked at the study and it appears that it's 25 mg of synthetic psilocybin. So assuming that's equivalent to 100% psilocybin and mushrooms average around .6% dry then it would be like 4g dry mushrooms.

It depends on the variety of mushroom. Some varieties can be 3-4 times stronger than what you'll typically run into. So I've heard anyway.

they sell psilocybin gummies, ranging from weak to 4.5g per. The ones i've tried were "3 is a normal dose, 6 is space jam, 1 is a nice afternoon off." I took one, and it did make everything a little brighter, birds sweeter sounding, and everything seemed a little bit better for a while. But i don't trust the manufacturers, so i only tried 1 pack over a couple of weeks.

anyhow 1-25mg is a pretty small does if 5g is considered a hero dose per siblings.

I haven't tried tons of nootropics like this, but i have tried Kanna, Kratom, psilocybin, CBD, delta-9 THC, THC-P, hydrogenated THC, salvia, and i'm probably forgetting a lot. Belladonna, that's one i tried before, for example. just came to me.

I don't do "hard" drugs, though, never have, no desire to. I do like plants, though.

> took one, and it did make everything a little brighter, birds sweeter sounding, and everything seemed a little bit better for a while.

Used to work at a dreary sweatshop where breaks amounted to smoking outside while staring at eachother, they used biometrics and software to track your KPIs , you'd get diarrhea from workplace food and departments had various beefs with each other.

Switched jobs to an international car manufacturer where people would greet eachother, drop their guards and have fun working together.

I got this exact feeling! The sky was more blue, flowers were more colorful, birds more chirpy, halls brighter and people smiled. Lasted for five months.

I've heard similar from people who didn't know they had vision issues, saw an eye specialist, received glasses, and went outside and actually saw for the first time in their lives how pretty everything outside is (offer not valid in some areas, other restrictions may apply). Most of them break down in tears from the sheer emotion, that i've known and seen videos of.

The mushroom thing isn't so earth-moving. It's like you have a deck of trading cards, and you take a gummy, and now all your cards look almost like foil cards. Shimmery, just on the peripheral, and since I personally was trying to experience good things, i was able to pay more attention to the birds and stuff.

It's almost like a placebo that gives you permission to not worry and to just experience for a short while.

While your sweatshop sucked, without that experience you maybe wouldn't appreciate the car manufacturer job experience as much, and it mightn't not have made you think to post at all.

I dunno, i'm getting real soft in my mid-life.

Yeah no it's fine, the only thing I've learned is that some things are better left unexperienced.

They feed us poison, so we buy their "cures", while they suppress our medicine.

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