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Comment by wouldbecouldbe | Hacker News Reader

When you take it, you understand, that if taken with the right approach it can lead to profound insights in changing your life and the effects described: helping with depression, addiction and accepting death are not far fetched at all. Yet it can also, if not guided or done on someone with anxiety have the opposite effect.

The more biological effects I agreed are not conclusion that can be drawn from that.

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Right, when you take it, it becomes clear it just injects salience / profundity / meaning into whatever you happen to be focused on or have on your mind (EDIT: mostly this is the main effect, but there can be novel perspectives / insights, and other audio-visual changes, but IMO it is the felt meaning that primarily drives the more credulous claims). Without adequate preparation, this is likely to be worthless in most cases, harmful in other cases, and helpful in some again. However, not all causes of depression or addiction are about accepting death, or a salience / meaning problem, and even when that kind of issue is involved, a momentary experience of profound meaning is NOT actually necessarily transformative either (i.e. you can and in fact must still choose how to interpret that experience, once out of it).

So it would actually be very surprising if it was just a clear net positive overall

I think its relatively easy to make it beneficial with an adult person taken in most serene settings & with good intentions. The studies they did do seem to reflect that.

I would advice against a too high of a dose first time. The 5 grams they normally give in studies seems to be on the high side for a first time.

Set and setting can help make a positive experience likely, yes, I think what proponents often miss is that for the vast majority of people, the experience will mostly just be "interesting" and "memorable", and not particularly transformative. I.e. transformative / curative effects seem to be rare, IMO for the reasons I already stated.

> However, not all causes of depression or addiction are about accepting death, or a salience / meaning problem, and even when that kind of issue is involved, a momentary experience of profound meaning is NOT actually necessarily transformative either (i.e. you can and in fact must still choose how to interpret that experience, once out of it).

I don't think it's (just) encountering the profound that ends addiction, I think it really just alters or "resets" your brain structure. I know somebody who had bit their nails for their entire life well into their 30's and after a mega dose of mushrooms they just stopped. It wasn't a shift in perspective, they just didn't have that habit anymore, or even the thought of it. They didn't even notice they stopped biting their nails until they had trouble typing.

It also seems to alleviate nerve pain, and apparently enabled one man paralyzed below the waist to walk again. Something really fundamental is getting altered.

Relevant:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/05/magic-mushro...

Also

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-...

Oh, I don't doubt that sometimes something fundamental can be altered. The best sort of broad explanation I've seen that jives with the experience is maybe the one I've found here: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/arti..., which I think would agree with your notion of a "reset" to fundamental neural structures. And yes, for certain conditions, like cluster headaches, as far as I know, psychedelics are the only things showing much real promise.

It can also just be easy for some proponents to forget that tonnes of people do and have done these things, with no clear significant lasting effects. And it is also common even for enthusiasts to say they they need to do take trips somewhat regularly (e.g. every few weeks or months) to regain the benefits. One-off miracles obviously happen, but I think are statistically likely the exception. And you can reverse or reject your insights, so for sure the trip is only one piece of the puzzle.

I'd love to see more serious research on psychedelics in general, to better engineer for useful and changing experiences. As it stands, just "take the psychedelic, manage your set and setting, and you'll have a significant positive effect" is generally not very plausible nor I think actually supported empirically or even by most anecdotes.

> it can lead to profound insights

It's because the drug is activating your reward centres, ideas are more likely to seem good etc. coke has a similar same effect.

> helping with depression Acid shrooms and the related mdma are all feel good drugs. Salvia on the other hand has no such feel good effect but is massively hallucinatory and perturbant. It helps with depression cos it's a feelgood drug.

> When you take it, you understand

To be fair, this is not how medical research is done.

It's also not the best idea to tell whatever board is reviewing your proposals, "just take psilocybin yourself and you'll understand"

You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning.

It's great if we have therapies that help people and get a proper scientific stamp. Yet we can also discover the benefits for ourselves before that stamp is given.

> You fortunately don't need medical research in learning how to live your life and experience meaning.

Here I'd disagree with you. I do need to know if you become happier because you become dumber due to brain damage or for some other magical reason. So far I haven't seen any evidence contrary to the dumber explanation.

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