Psilocybin shows success in medical trials | Hacker News Reader

Psilocybin shows success in medical trials

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284 pointsgnosis165 comments

Heidegger posited that our society's anxiety over death was artificial. Not the instinctive fear of death, but the constant worrying. This also leads to massive denial of the reality of death in popular culture (at least your own death; death is something that happens to "other people"). He proposed that people would be happier if they stopped denying their own mortality and also stopped being afraid of it.

So maybe the LSD and psilocybin just cut through the socialized anxiety crap and give people a more natural or normal view of death, among other things.

Whenever I think of our society's relationship with death I remember a documentary I once saw about an aid worker who travelled with a nomadic tribe in Africa for a while.

During her stay one of the tribe's elders decided she had had enough and told the tribe so. They started their ritual and held a feast for a day or two where everybody peacefully said goodbye to the old woman and on the morning of the third day the tribe moved on and left the old woman behind in the desert to die in peace.

However the aid worker couldn't accept this. The woman was still alive! She could go on for at least a few more weeks, maybe even months! So she frantically ran back to the tribe pleading with them to let the old woman live. The tribesman were confused and tried to calm the aid worker down. It was all good! They had said goodbye and she had led an amazing life!

When it became clear she couldn't convince the tribe of the error of their ways, the aid-worker went back to the old woman and stayed with her to comfort her until she passed away.

The aid worker never realized that she was the one being comforted.

Sounds interesting. What's the name of the documentary?

It was an episode of a Dutch documentary series from over 5 years ago so I don't think I'd be able to find it.

"I don't think I'd be able to find it"

Rather ironic comment, coming from the technical founder of VideoView ;-)

Seriously though, many thanks for sharing that story - it illustrates just how far advanced some cultures are about death and dying. Western Civ seems incredibly immature in this regard by comparison.

If you (or anyone else reading this) can offer any more details about this series or episode, by all means please share!

We're still working on automated transcription for VideoView so I'm afraid I can't search for key phrases like I would normally do ;)

For the Dutchies who might be able to help; it was from a show at least 5 years old but maybe even 10 about 'liefdadigheidswerkers' who travelled to other countries. I think it was on SBS6, but definitely one of the commercial stations.

How was she being comforted? By gaining a new perspective on death? I'm not sure that, if I were the tribe woman, I would have wanted this aid worker around in my final weeks.

The tribe woman was perfectly fine and wasn't worried about death. The aid worker was the person who was anxious and worried.

A last gift while in this body, awesome :-)

The last 'she' was the aid worker, who was indeed being comforted by the tribe woman in her last moments. I've edited it for clarity.

You can reach the same insight by doing enough vipassana meditation. I've talked with people who, having gained this insight through LSD, psilocybin, or other methods, gain an interest in meditation.

Either way, it's not so much that it cuts through socialized anxiety. Another insight you gain from this kind of experience is realizing how much you participated in creating the socialized anxiety within you. The anxiety doesn't go away so much as you become less attached to it. Being less attached to it, you see how it no longer serves a purpose in your life, and you're free to pay attention to the stuff that is more important. Like experiencing what time you have left -- and make no mistake, whether you have a terminal cancer, or not (or whether we make it to technology that allows someone to transfer personality into silicon), you too will eventually die.

One day, I hope that we'll have socially sanctioned initiations, not just for treating existential anxiety in people facing terminal illness. It would cut away a lot of teenage adolescent bullshit, and a lot of midlife bullshit. Having experienced that "cosmic force" invites people to really connect with each other, something far more meaningful than our current crop of "social networks." So this isn't just about having a meaningful experience of death. It's about having a meaningful experience of life.

You can reach the same insight by doing enough vipassana meditation.

If someone posted an article about a new supersonic jet that takes you from New York to Sydney in under 4 hours, you could make a comment about being able to do the same by foot. You would be technically correct however it wouldn't be a very useful comment, given the difference between several hours and a lifetime.

There is something interesting in the Taoist canon, though I imagine many teachers in other traditions know of this.

People don't know why they should be practicing mindfulness. And then for whatever reason they gain insight -- be that practice, or ritual, or psychedelics -- they get it. A lot of things open up. There's a whole layer of meaning in textual traditions that opens up, and you realize a lot of people have been trying to say the same things. And you wonder how you missed it?

And then you want to go back. Now you jump into the practice diligently, to try to get back to that peak experience. The thing is, peak experiences are just that. Like all things, they come and go.

Coming through the psychedelics, it is easy to spend a lot of time taking hit after hit to get back to that peak experience. It was part of why people who have not been initiated into this fear it. They see people drifting out from the real world, and these people then say crazy things like, "well, reality is much bigger than you think."

The thing is, this happens in any mystical traditions. Someone who realized these insights while sitting on a cushion starts become uninterested in anything but sitting on that cushion.

Which is ironic because all of this is about experiencing reality, not escaping from it. That is another reason I pointed out the connection with vipassana. The point is to experience reality, something that seems counterintuitive when people talk about psychedelics.

Usually, you have a sangha -- people who are cultivating with you, whatever the modality -- helps you stay grounded.

Generally speaking, once you had some psychedelic experience, you'd find meditating much easier. It's the journey, not the destination. Of course :-)

It's funny that you say all of this, because I think it's completely true. I've never tried mushrooms, LSD, or any sort of hallucinogen beyond MDMA. MDMA alone changed my life, but what followed was how I utilized that moment of awareness that I experienced. I started meditating, read The Power of Now by Tolle, and having had enough of a philosophical and meditative foundation for understanding what Tolle was saying, I can occasionally enter a realm of understanding far beyond the shallow experiences I had lived in my life up to that point. It's so true when you say that reality is so much bigger than you think, because once you realize the ridiculous amount of depth that goes into every single thing around you (even the room your in contains materials built by dozens of people from across the world - think of how long it takes you to cook breakfast in the morning) then everything in your life begins to take on a sense of perspective.

That said, I really want to try mushrooms/acid because I feel like I'm at this midway point, bobbing back and forth between the awareness of meditation and the power of the present and slipping back into old thought habits and anxieties. I feel like a pokemon evolving, flashing between my old form and my new form and my ego keeps wanting to hit B to stop the evolution. :P

Cool! If you can, try mushrooms or acid with people coming with that intent. The setting and your intent going in matters. Best if your guide is someone who treats this as a sacred rite.

Something else that complements vipassana well is the method described in Tsultrim Allione's Feeding Your Demons.

I get your point.

But isn't meditation more like "You don't get it, until you get it" kind of a thing?

I mean I haven't read anything so far that describes the process of mediation as do Step 1) -> Step 2) .. All I get is description of what meditation can do and even that too more or less put down like- "You will not know how it feels, until you feel it".

How to Meditate? I hope someday I get some clear answer to this question.

How to meditate: a simple, permissive, breathing meditation. A nearly-identical form of this meditation can be found in most 'meditation-based' systems. Its pretty universal.

What you do: 1) Sit in a comfortable position, without shifting around, in a quiet place, with your eyes closed 2) Primary Focus: to constantly feel yourself breathing 3) Do this for about an hour

Likely Contingencies: a) You "need" to shift around. Nothing wrong with that. What happens if you don't? Keep feeling your breath! b) You will start thinking. Nothing wrong with that. But can you think while constantly feeling your breath? Or are you multi-tasking now? Keep feeling your breath! c) a+b: You think about needing to shift around. Nothing wrong with that. Keep feeling your breath! d) You might wonder if the hour is over or not. Alternatively, if you set an alarm, you will wonder if its properly set, and if maybe you should check it. Keep feeling your breath! e) You might need to do a million little things, check the dog's water, the task queue, the pot on the stove, whatever. Keep feeling your breath! f) You will find yourself thinking about how you are now 'feeling your breath'. Oops, you probably just stopped feeling your breath to think that thought. Keep feeling your breath!

What does it mean to "constantly feel yourself breathing"? a) It means your attention/focus is completely on the feeling of breathing. Your conscious existence is the sensation of being 'a breathing thing'. b) Corrolary: you probably aren't 'thinking in language'. In my experience, its not common to multitask thoughts 'in language' with a focus on physical sensation. c) As you begin meditating (first several times? more? less? depends...) You will context switch back and forth constantly between 'thinking in language' and 'feeling your breath'.

Why is this meditation interesting? The best reply I can give is, "Isn't it interesting enough that you can't just do such a simple thing as watch your breath without thinking about a bunch of other things?"

The process of meditation is just that, a process. It's not that hard. You're focusing on experiencing things at the base sensational level.

So for example, you have a web of thoughts associated with meditation and things like "You don't get it, until you get it".

There are feelings underneath that. Perhaps a bit of anxiety, frustration. Curiosity. Etc. Your mind interprets those feelings into thoughts.

Each feeling then, radiates from parts of your body. For example, anxiety may be a tension that you feel in the chest. It has shape, it has texture. It has pressure. Whenever you get those sensations, your mind automatically interprets that as "anxiety". So you focus in on the sensations instead.

So now, you're paying attention to the actual sensations. You notice that it isn't a solid thing. That it moves. And if you start zooming into it, it isn't a solid sensation so much as made up of tiny bits of sensations that come in and out very fast, and your mind interpolates the sensation to give an illusion of a single, solid sensation.

So now you're there, at the "bare-metal", bare sensation level. This is where you are, observing those sensations and not attaching to any one of them.

A similar practice is called "Noting". You pick a concentration object, and pay attention to it. Things will come up. First will be thoughts. You Note the thought, and then you go back to to the concentration object. Eventually, something will shift and emotions will come up. You Note each as they come up and then go back to the concentration object. Then you get to the bare sensate levels, and you Note each of the things that come up. Then you go back to the concentration object.

That is it.

There really is not much more than that. The insights some of the other folks have mentioned here, that will come on its own. Your "job" while meditating is to Note each and every thing that comes up, let it go, and then go back to the concentration object.

A minor nit: Many people can reach deep insight by meditating intensely for a week or less, not a lifetime.

Testimonies of Deep Insight or Knowledge of the Arising and Passing - http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/if-this-is-in...

To reach the end of seeking and seeing that everything is already non-dual, many people can accomplish this in 18 months to 2 years.

The 10-day guides for achieving stream entry on that site are designed for people who already have 5+ years of experience. Similarly, the Buddha became an arahant within one 10-day sit, but not without many years of previous training.

I point out vipassana for these reasons:

(1) You don't have to do this with psychedelics.

(2) You can gain the insights without psychedelics, meaning that it is within the normal operating parameters of the human brain to gain these insights.

(3) You can trip and get high when you meditate. Don't be afraid when it happens.

(4) You can trip and get high when you meditate. It's another attachment.

(5) It's less of taking a "shortcut" with psychedelics and more about being initiated. Having tasted it and knowing that vipassana will also get you there invites you to have a regular practice. Peak experiences come and go.

(6) The universe is a bigger place than we thought.

Can you provide any advice for getting started or learning more about vipassana?

As @yor said, Mindfulness in Plain English is good. You can find a copy free at: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

I never heard of Unlearning Meditation but I do know that there were a lot of things I thought I knew about meditation and it was ... not exactly like that. Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind gets into some of the technical details. I like Daniel Ingram's book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha but a lot of people don't. It's not exactly a beginner's book, but it's something to keep in mind if you ever start getting some weird experiences that you have difficulty framing.

I say vipassana to mean the specific practice of experiencing reality, every little bit. It's not the only modality, and you'll find this particular practice in other traditions (and I mean, in Western traditions as well. There's not much you can tack on to "experience reality").

I have also been (slowly) translating the Tao Te Ching from the perspective that it is a book to guide you in your practice, not necessarily a book stating a philosophy. For example, the famous "The journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step" when put into this context actually means, let go of the thought/emotion/sensation at the beginning rather than when it becomes a full-blown train wreck that you have to ride out.

I'm a bit stuck with the translation because I'm hitting the parts that resemble more of a trip with psychedelics, and the audience was originally intended for people who may not have those experiences. Having said that, I noticed that Brian Browne Walker's translation is in that particular spirit.

Sometimes, just sitting there and getting in touch with reality is difficult. So there are other practices that can lead up to doing this. If you are still interested in this, but find Mindfulness in Plain English intimidating, I suggest Dan Millman's The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and followup with his Everyday Enlightenment.

98% of Mindfulness in Plain English is great. Just ignore the parts where they talk about psychic powers. The description of vipassana technique is very well done.

I'd suggest starting with the book Unlearning Meditation instead of any particular traditional technique, but that's just me.

I had 9 months of intermittent practice prior to one month of more hard core practice. Its very doable.

vipassana meditation

== another nit: the first word is a useless adjective.

People have all sorts of notions about meditation. I'm writing for people who have become intrigued by the potential insights gained by psychedelics -- who may even be seeking relief from existential anxiety right now -- but may still have some doubts about using psychedelics. These folk are unlikely to to know what "vipassana" is, or that it is a meditation, or that there are lots of other things people call "meditation", and most importantly, a Google keyword to look through.

If you know enough to nitpick this, then you probably didn't need the information :-D

This is a useful, and thoughtful, qualification.

Thanks :-)

To be concrete and explicit, my experience with death via vipassana is to notice gaps in experience where there is absolutely zero experience occurring. I've found this especially effective while falling asleep. If you get lucky, you'll be paying attention the exact moment that you fully lose consciousness.

Doing this has made me fully comfortable with death, as there is simply nothing, no experience, no frame of reference, no self, nothing to judge, nothing to suffer.

Highly recommended.

Yep, I've been there. Then there's also the point when you realize the "gaps" are not gaps, but rather, what things are. Kinda like focusing on negative space. Then, there's the realization that the experiences (thoughts, emotions, sensations) arise and pass, begin and end all on their own. And that nowhere in there is any sense of self. So there is no sleeping or anything. Just ... here.

Now, I've been trying all of that off the cushion. Mindful standing. Mindful walking. Mindful martial arts. Mindful coding. Mindfully listening to other people. With varying levels of success :-)

Mindful coding.

Would you mind elaborating on that? I would have thought mindfulness (being aware of the present and being alive) would sit at the opposite end of a spectrum from coding (being deeply focused on abstract constructs). When I'm good, I remember to use mindfulness in the breaks between coding, but I can't imagine them in parallel. (Maybe you meant the former?)

PS: great comments.

Thanks, I'm glad you like these.

I was deeply influenced by the writings of Daniel Ingram. I encountered his book shortly after my first set of experiences, and the experiences were not like anything I had read about or assumed. Despite the controversy around his books, he has a framework I find useful.

He introduced the notion of a "concentration object", and I realized you can use anything as a concentration object. Since a lot of people are out of touch with the senses, it is better to use a physical sense as the concentration object -- breathing, candle, etc. at least until you realized enough insights to go straight to just being.

However, you can also use concentration objects that are constructed. They come and go anyways, so why wouldn't you use something that is not there? I have a wide network of acquaintances with people practicing all sorts of traditions, and I can render what they do in these terms. There is a whole class of practices where you create the concentration object and the concentrate on it. For example: a Buddhist mandala or pathworking the Sephiroth in Kabbalah.

Where I find it useful in coding has more to do with the concentration skills gained from one-point concentration. So that is not strictly vipassana.

However, more importantly, it has allowed me to consider code on its own merits instead of reacting to my Jungian shadows or to other Jungian shadows. There's a tendency for nerds and geeks to get emotional about their code, even defend it, and yet they will not admit to the emotions that run amok. Look in any thread about "What is the best programming language?" and you'll see it.

Another useful thing is that ... knowing things come and go, that there is always an ending to anything that begins, means it is easier to let go of code. You don't get attached to code, so you have attachments to keeping it around. Leaving commented out code. Or diving back in and refactoring. Or recognizing when you are about go yak shaving, and no, that neat feature you did really isn't that important.

Finally, as your awareness broadens, you really start thinking about just what kind of impact your code is making. Not in the social activist sense so much as one deeply informed by the realization you've gained on the cushion. Do you really want to be working on another social network for cats?

Hope that helps, maybe provide some interesting things to explore :-)

Thanks for the explanation (it would seem that I was replying to you while you were writing this). I do have one question though about concentration objects. I think I have an idea of what you mean by this. I wonder if you have any advise about how to go about diversifying your set concentration objects. I can appreciate intellectually that you could have this be anything, but my meditation practice (somewhat stagnant as of late) has relied upon ritual to a great extent. For example, I have found really only two sitting positions that work for getting settled down. Similarly, I have found it very difficult to stay awake if I try to meditate after eating, since I tend to get drowsy, so I have a ritual of doing this before dinner on weekends. Similarly, there are a few sensation rituals, which I can associate with your concentration objects, that help me maintain awareness of my environment once I get settled in. I could give other examples but I hope you get the point. I arrived at these rituals in an empirical matter, and I see them purely practical mechanisms to achieve some effect, so I am happy to do away with them if it would be beneficial, but I would like to hear your thoughts about how to do so without regressing into a chaos of stimulation.

I wrote a bit about it here: http://www.quora.com/Meditation/Whats-a-nice-little-cheat-sh...

Unfortunately, I don't know the traditional lore that lets someone assess and customize a concentration object for someone else. So what I wrote there comes from my understanding of NLP, specifically, the sensory modality. It is incomplete.

I will say though, find something that feels more or less right and then stick with it (at least for the beginning). Just like there is never a perfect time to meditate, and there is never a perfect posture, or a perfect cushion, there isn't a perfect concentration object. You might be dithering because of the anxiety that comes up when you subconsciously realize, you really are going to go looking into yourself. Though, from what you are saying, you've probably already experienced that.

I also suggest trying to set aside time every day for this. If you can anchor it to around the same time of day (such as, "before dinner", "before bed") it would help. A streak calendar app also helps. The commitment is to do a minimum amount, say even 5 minutes a day, and allow a "bonus time" on the weekends. Of course, if you feel comfortable sitting longer, by all means :-)

I don't like to meditate after eating more because of the full stomach. I suppose I should try that "fullness" sensation as a concentration object sometime.

As for drowsiness, a tip I picked up from Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind: you can fill a glass of water and hold it. That tends to keep people awake. You can also try standing meditation, as that is more energetic than sitting.

If you are closing your eyes while sitting and find yourself drowsy, keep your eyes open. My Ch'en buddies tell me it is tradition to keep the eyes open. It's possible to do this without blinking. The first couple times, your eyes might start watering as the body adjusts to not blinking; then it comes back into homeostasis.

Postures ... they do matter, in the sense that you want to be able to fall asleep in them. If you can, try it with the spine vertical. If you are using a chair, sit at the edge of the chair, feet flat to the ground.

Incense helps in a lot of ways. It also acts as an environmental cue. So is having a dedicated space for the meditation.

As for the chaos of stimulation. This one is tricky. Yes, you can get into a trance by turning down the amount of stimulation. However, the practice of vipassana is being OK with things that come in and out of your space. A stimulus stimulates you because your awareness attaches to it, and comes off of the concentration object. What you do is stay with the concentration object while allowing whatever it is to pass freely through you. You want to stay awake, though in the deeper states, things start resembling lucid dreaming. Falling asleep is the opposite of mindfulness, that is, mindlessness.

There are sometimes when I simply sit there for a good half hour, my thoughts thrashing about. And then the second session following up on it, I hit the emptiness (for however long before I attach to something again), though my eyes are open, my spine straight and unsupported.

It's worth practicing being mindful even at greater stimulation since the skill translates to being mindful while off the cushion. To put it in a different way, you slip into flow state when you choose to, whatever activity you are doing. That's helpful for things like cooking. It is liberating when someone is yelling at you at work for whatever reason, and you're not pushed off your center; you might even help your coworker relax and deal with whatever issue that triggered the yelling in the first place.

Hope this helps.

From the Quora link: "The advanced states gets weirder and weirder, and you run into risks. "

Can you describe the risks.

Meglomania. Intent manifesting. And lots of stuff related to shadow-side stuff.

The basics of Noting (vipassana) is still going to be the same.

Thanks for the tips!

I would like to join in stephth's inquiry. I have no experience with anything intense like vipassana, but I used to meditate regularly, and eventually made some progress in the way of walking meditation and the like. When I write code however, the focus is on "holding" the right thoughts until I solve the problem, at which point most of those thoughts get flushed. But in many ways it is as if these thoughts are holding on to me! It is more of a reactive process then a contemplative one. Of course, this is just my experience. Perhaps you have a different experience when writing code, or are talking about a different kind of mindfulness.

I'm late for some sitting with friends -- I'll respond to this when I get back later tonight. I think what you brought up is worth exploring.

If in death there is no experience, then all you have left is experience. So far in my life, I only have evidence of me being conscious and experiencing. I find it unlikely that my consciousness will cease to exist permanently especially if time is infinite.

The result for me is that there is no fear of death because there is nothing there, thus nothing there to fear. If experience returned again, that would be fine too. Basically it doesn't matter either way since nothing exists outside of this present experience.

I was wondering about the same thing (your first two sentences—well put), but arrived at different conclusion. If my consciousness is the only frame of reference, then how can it cease to exist for me?

Yes that is my conclusion as well. I think you misread it.

Nice speculation. I invite you to give this stuff a shot with an open mind, and no expectations.

I guess I'm just making the point that death being permanent is just as speculative.

For the people who experienced those insights, it is no longer speculative. They've seen it for themselves. That's why I invite you to practice instead of inviting you to debate.

I'm not arguing against whatever it is you're suggesting... but how exactly would that remove speculation over the permanence of death?

You wouldn't be speculating anymore.

How would this meditation prove that death is permanent (or not permanent)?

Direct. Experience.

You can't experience death because by definition it is when you cannot experience anything.

Sure, whatever. You win :-)

Something my devout Buddhist uncle told me in our religious debates:

"I'm not claiming Buddhism and meditation are the only way to enlightenment, just that they are one way."

That's had a profound impact on my acceptance of people from different walks of life. I feel like one can find peace and enlightenment from a Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic path, or as was the case with me, a psychedelic one.

To me, there is no question of universally better. Perhaps one path is more suited to a particular individual, but that's up to him or her to discover.

Meditation is "the third way". The Fourth Way is superior in many respects.

http://gurdjieff.tribe.net/thread/158f144d-6630-46e6-ad5d-f2...

DMT is the epitome of the fourth way. It is transformative in a way that nothing else can really approach, not LSD or mushrooms or any amount of meditation, or what have you.

Someone wise said, "People can endure all the suffering in the world if they find the experience meaningful."

Psychedelics often situate the experience of death in a deeply meaningful context.

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.

-- Nietzsche

If anyone's interested in this topic, I highly recommend: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Mea...

One book I would recommend on the subject of death and its place in society is The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. Although it uses a Freudian (or rather, Rankian) foundation you can appreciate its thinking and conclusions without buying into that whole framework. Its concept of individual "immortality projects" (which are exactly what they sound like) is especially helpful.

Here's part of the notes I took while reading it:

http://tdod.pen.io/

Please excuse any grammar and/or spelling mistakes since these were written very quickly on a cell phone keyboard.

P.S.: To feint: please fix your site. Trying to publish material on Pen.io under an the custom URL "tdod-notes" I got someone else's page and couldn't even go back to edit what I had posted. Also, using a custom URL "tdod" didn't work at first, and I couldn't change the title to "Partial notes for Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death" afterwards. It seems like the safest way to use the site now is to create a short "asdf" post and then edit it to add the content.

What makes you believe anxiety over death is socialized crap, and that total acceptance is the natural/normal view?

IMO anxiety over death is 100% rooted in our instinctive fear of death. Best I can tell, humans have been anxious about it ever since they had the cognitive ability to see it coming, and the time to stop and think about it.

What makes you think "humans have been anxious about it ever since they had the cognitive ability to see it coming, and the time to stop and think about it"?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is fairy tails as old as dirt and from the world over occasionally feature a figure in search of eternal youth. E.g., the fountain of youth.

Oh, that's an interesting argument. But that doesn't necessarily rule out socialized anxiety. The fairy tales were recorded and told in a time with writing, that is, civilization / society.

Denying it certainly makes no sense, but we could do with more people having a healthy fear of it; perhaps then we might start doing more about it.

People who think of death as "the next great adventure" (as phrased in the Harry Potter book series), or any number of other cached euphemisms, will have relatively little inclination to actually fix it, or even think about it.

Yes. Life is good; death is bad. Sure, if you were born a few centuries ago, it would have been best to come to some sort of "acceptance" of death, because there was no hope of avoiding it. But today, we're on the edge of being able to prevent the destruction of billions of sentient beings, and that acceptance is counterproductive.

Uh.

So ... you're saying that you deny entropy?

No, but once we deal with the ~120 year time limit, we have a lot more time to deal with long-term problems like stars going out and protons decaying.

Well, I've mentioned elsewhere, reality is a lot bigger than you think it is.

There isn't any such thing as a "healthy" fear. It's more that fear arises and passes without obstruction. "Oh, I feel afraid. Noted. Oh, its gone now."

One friend of mine has made it his mission to improve the way we look at death in North America even and has even worked at a funeral home and in a morgue. He is currently writing a book. If anyone is interested his website is http://embraceyourdeath.com/

I appreciate the link and have book marked a few of his blog posts.

Another good read on finding perspective with death is "Staring at the Sun".

David Nutt, former head of Britain's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, amusingly points out that "Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of DNA with James Watson, and Kary Mullis, who invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), had both taken [LSD, another psychedelic], and attributed some of their understanding and insights to it". He also notes that "l'Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris is named after the Elysian Fields in ancient Greece, where people went annually to eat psychedelic mushrooms"

Nutt was removed from his role for suggesting British drug classification needed to correlate more with drug harm. The absurdity is illustrated by the British people having the "ridiculous situation that if you find magic mushrooms in the wild you can sit in the field and munch them to your heart’s content, but if you take them home you could go to prison for up to seven years, and if you give them to a friend you’ll be supplying a Class A drug and you could spend 14 years in jail."

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Without-Hot-Air-ebook/dp/B009KCL... Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs (2012)

Quick note - Nutt is incorrect. The Elysian Fields were a Greek domain of the dead. He probably means the city of Eleusis, which was the location of the famous mysteries, during which some (1) speculate that the participants did in fact use psychoactive substances, although I believe ergot is the most frequently suggested culprit.

1 - it's by no means universally accepted. E.g, I don't believe Walter Burkert thinks much of the idea.

I think Salon's editor messed up the title of the article (and, by extension, the HN title). The article describes recent trials for psilocybin and MDMA, not LSD. There were certainly LSD trials in the '60s but if there have been some recent ones the article doesn't mention them.

I'm also curious about the facts, at one point he sates that 30mg of LCD was measured out, which is a pretty insane amount of LSD from my understanding.

From a massive steel combination safe they removed a bottle containing one gram of synthesized psilocybin, the psychoactive agent animating the 200-member fungus family commonly known as “magic mushrooms.”

The Johns Hopkins team has identified the golden mean — between 20 and 30 milligrams, roughly equal to a good fistful of strong ‘shrooms — to maximize peak experience while minimizing transitory anxiety.

The article said 20 to 30 milligrams of psilocybin which is the hallucinogen in shrooms.

I'm sure that "LSD" was added to the title for its name recognition. No one was going to click on an article about psilocybin. :)

My only concern now is how do you find pure LSD/Psylocybin? As in, how do you know that you're buying what you think you're buying?

Obviously in a controlled, medical environment the problem is void.

NB: I am NOT advocating drug use/abuse of any kind. This is a legitimate question I've been asking myself for quite some time.

Well, one way is to learn organic chemistry and synthesize the substances yourself (or know people who do this).

Another way is to pick or grow psychedelic mushrooms. Before picking wild psychedelic mushrooms, I strongly suggest you learn a lot about how to identify them (ideally not just from books, though good books are important, but from experienced mushroom hunters). Picking wild mushrooms can be very dangerous. As the saying goes, there are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.

Yet another way is to go to a country where these substances are legal, decriminalized, or tolerated. Until recently, the Netherlands effectively allowed the sale of psychedelic mushrooms. Erowid's Law Vault may help you find other countries with less idiotic drug laws than the US.[1]

Finally, you can submit a sample of your substance to, or get testing kits from companies such as: [2][3]

[1] - https://erowid.org/psychoactives/law/law.shtml

[2] - http://www.dancesafe.org/

[3] - http://www.ecstasydata.org/about.php

I'll add this to your comment since it's much better than the one I'd written; Dancesafe sells DIY kits for certain chemicals as well -- http://dancesafe.org/products/testing-kits

It's pretty simple with LSD. You should buy it in blotter form. A piece of blotter can only contain so much of active material (fractions of a milligram). It's too small a dose for almost any psychoactive substances to have any effect on you. LSD and DOB are rare exceptions to this rule. So if you have something on a blotter, it's either LSD or DOB.

Now, DOB is very bitter, and LSD has no taste. If you put a piece of blotter in your mouth, and it tastes bitter, just spit it out -- that's probably DOB. Otherwise, it's LSD, and it's pure.

This is terrible advice, that must not be heeded.

The times when you could be reasonably sure you are getting LSD if you are getting the drug on blotter, are long gone. There are many drugs that can be/are being distributed on blotter paper. Some of these have a very steep dose-response curve, and can be very dangerous in relatively minuscule amounts.

While it's perfectly safe (if a bit reckless) to consume, say, upwards of three hits of LSD on blotter, doing the same with blotters containing 25I-NBOMe or Bromo-Dragonfly could land you in hospital or even the mortuary.

Taking psychedelic drugs originating on the black market has, unfortunately, become an intricate game, and you really need to learn the rules before you can play it at least somewhat safely. There is no easy answer, other than doing your research, preferably lots of it.

The first part of your message is a rather dangerous misconception. Many, many drugs can and have been dispensed on blotter paper, often as LSD mimics. For dozens of examples, see DEA Microgram bulletins passim (http://www.justice.gov/dea/pr/micrograms.shtml).

The point about bitterness is absolutely correct though, and certainly any purported LSD blotter that tastes bitter should be suspect.

Interestingly, at least one non-psychedelic has been found distributed on blotter paper: alprazolam (See http://www.justice.gov/dea/pr/micrograms/2008/mg0508.pdf), for which I'd tentatively expect the bitterness rule also to work.

It's worth noting that you can buy LSD test kits on Amazon (with Prime shipping, even!): http://www.amazon.com/NIK-Drug-Test-Kit-LSD/dp/B002ATUECS/

Those only test for the presence of any tryptamine, not LSD specifically. So even if it tests positive you could still be getting DOM/DOB/DOI. Which is bad, since those can kill you or else have serious negative effects if you take too much.

DOM, DOB and DOI are not tryptamines, but rather psychedelic amphetamines. This is an important distinction, as it means that the most common test kit (Ehrlich reagent), will not confuse them for LSD, contrary to what you said.

It is however true that there are substances which both fit on a blotter, and are indole psychedelics - e.g. 5-MeO-AMT, or other (other than LSD, that is) ergolines, such as LSB, ALD-52 (though these are extremely rare and (likely) share the safety profile of LSD). The Ehrlich test is not capable of distinguishing between different indoles, so you may get a case of mistaken identity in this scenario.

Oops, didn't realize the DOx family were psychedelic amphetamines. Thanks for correcting this.

I'm having trouble finding in-depth information about what a Modified Ehrlich's Reagent LSD test actually tests for. Would you mind telling me where you learned they test for any tryptamine, and any more information you might have on the matter?

Edit: This PDF: http://www.bvda.com/EN/download/np_instructions_2002.pdf says the test indicates the presence of ergot alkaloids, not tryptamines.

I believe Ehrlich's tests for indoles, a family which includes tryptamines, but also lots of other things. Colour tests are never conclusive; increasingly persuasive results are usually obtained by combining several different colour tests, for example this post discussing LSD testing: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1101068&....

Actually, the point about bitterness is wrong.

Both the blotter paper and the inks on it could have a taste. Also, the sensation of taste (or lack thereof) could be influenced psychosomatically, by conscious or subconscious expectations.

Indeed, but where the downside is getting an unwanted dose of something like DOB it's advisable to err on the side of caution.

My point is that the taste or lack thereof proves absolutely nothing. So you can't err on the side of caution using the taste test.

Anyway, by the time you taste it, it's too late.

AIUI, the point is that a sane dose of LSD doesn't taste bitter, so if one rejects any bitter blotter then one would be erring on the side of caution - possibly rejecting perfectly good LSD due to a bitter ink or paper, but avoiding the great majority non-LSD psychedelics.

It's certainly preferable to identify a substance before tasting it, but it's not too late - spitting the paper out and rinsing the mouth out is likely at least to reduce the absorbed dose.

A perhaps more pressing problem is the risk of anxiety due to an innocently-bitter piece of blotter - I imagine a borderline-bad trip could be made much worse by a persistent fear that it would last >24h.

Of course, real caution would mean not eating anything cooked up by criminals in an illicit lab...

DOB blotter is sometimes a little thicker/larger since dosage is about 10x heavier than the equivalent of LSD. Bad mistake to make by the way since DOB is less tested, lasts considerably longer and takes around 2 hours to kick in.

I didn't know that LSD wasn't ever supposed to taste. Figured the bitterness was just from the ink on the blotter. Took three tabs, felt it a little (comparable to 100ug), figured it was just weak acid and so redosed five more tabs about two hours in. Even on heroic acid trips the longest I'd been away was eight hours. On DOB I stayed out for a solid 24.

Yeah, DOB (and any other DOx, I suppose?) seems pretty bad. Very bad trips are apparently both much more probable and much more unpleasant on DOB than on acid. I don't think I know anyone who tried DOB and would recommend it.

I spent a summer taking DOB once. I would certainly recommend it, in the right environment and once you know what you're taking.

However, this particular DOB was distributed in pill form, so people believed that it was ecstasy, so I saw a lot of bad things happen to people from it.

Its a really interesting psychedelic (in my opinion) but definitely needs to be handled with care. You need at least 48 hours after taking any appreciable dose to return to "normality" so if you are taking it, make sure that you have at least two days free.

Growing Psilocybe mushrooms is really easy: http://www.shroomery.org/11432/Lets-Grow-Mushrooms-Pf-tek-vi...

Well, luckily, psilocybin is easy enough to grow on your own in the form of mushrooms, though quite illegal. The information is out there if you look for it.

Indeed-- this is fairly trivial to do, though as noted, illegal.

Silk road.

Please don't publicise this - Gawker already did enough damage. If some of the more interesting things become popular enough then governments will begin to attack them. In fact, there has already been at least one conviction regarding what you mentioned. Authorities have a terrible fear of things they do not control and are quite willing to become very violent to expand their influence. The less they know, the better.

Agreed. Be careful who you mention it to. Its a beautiful place for responsible individuals but a death sentence for many. You do not want to go there with a habit.

People should be free to take whatever soft drugs they like. We will not win the war against drugs with prohibition, just look at when alcohol was forbidden in United states during the 30ies that led to the rise of Al Capone and similar mafia organizations.

The solution is simple make it unprofitable for criminal originations to manufacture drugs by making them legal.

The current drug laws are also hypocrazy as long range bomber fighters are allowed to take light doses of Amphetamine to stay awake during long missions. So the state are allowed todo what its citizens are not allowed todo.

Citizens can be prescribed (meth)amphetamines for medical usage. Also, the air force has moved to Modafinil IIRC.

What about hard drugs? You argue against prohibition - that alcohol should be legal, yet it is a hard drug.

Prohibition was 1920-1933.

psilocybin != LSD

The modern study written about in this article uses psilocybin, not LSD.

They are entirely different substances, with different effects.

I completely agree. I think a common misconception is all psychedelics are the same - but last different times. Definitely not the case. They may share common characteristics but definitely have a personality of their own ;-)

Interesting how they're using synthetic psilocybin, maybe for control purposes, but I thought it would be easier to obtain it from the original sources

Alicia Danforth, research assistant to Dr. Charles Grob (who ran the psilocybin research study mentioned in this article) goes in to detail as to their reasons for using synthetic psilocybin in this recording of her talk at the Burning Man festival.[1]

The talk is also well worth hearing for the other details she gives of this important research.

[1] - http://www.matrixmasters.net/archive/Playalogues/131-Danfort...

Fear, depression, anxiety, misplaced energy, clouded perception, debilitating ego...

Yes, psychedelics can alleviate these problems. I could've told you that when I was 14, and I'm sure that many intelligent, creative, productive people will agree. Anecdotal evidence, I know.

Although I haven't touched anything stronger than caffeine for well over 7 years, I AM advocating the use of tryptamines and phenethylamines

I'm a little surprised that science is so surprised that this changes people.

Basically, what it does is teach, rather than chemically alter. The chemical goes away; the lesson does not.

What I'd do a study on, if I was studying this, is combining it with "spaced repetition" - that is, treat the pill like a flash card, to maximize retention of lessons.

20mg is an awful high dose. The usual dosage is between 75-1000 micrograms. 1000 still being awful high. (and 20 milligrams, is a _lot_ more than that!) Wonder if its a typo, of it they are just going balls out.

That dose is referring to psilocybin, I believe. 20,000µg would be a psychosis-inducing dose of LSD.

Every psychedelic I've taken has had an upper-bound beyond which increasing dose didn't really do much. Granted I've never taken astronomical doses of LSD but a "heroic dose" of psilocybin will take you places a "heroic dose" of LSD can't.

I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't heard of anyone eating a sheet of acid who wasn't at least a little messed up afterwards.

In case you missed this article about monster doses of LSD, you might be interested:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5210596

I did miss that— thanks for the rerun.

Ah, thanks. Mis-read that part of the article.

He's talking about a dose of psilocybin not lsd.

For anyone interested in this sort of stuff, The Spirit Molecule was a great read. http://www.amazon.com/DMT-Molecule-Revolutionary-Near-Death-...

>Huxley himself would famously request and receive a large intravenous dose of LSD on his own deathbed the following year.

No, it was intramuscular. His last written request (he was no longer able to speak) was " "LSD, 100 µg, IM".

The story of Aldous Huxley's death and his wife's decision to administer LSD to him is very touching and well worth reading.[1]

[1] - https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/huxley_laura/huxle...

Love seeing the rise in interest in psychedelics posts here. I have always had a strong interest in 'entheogens'. Its hard to write about such a subject matter due to their powerful nature. All I can say is early on it was about fun and partying, but over time the lesson I learned was they are powerful tools not to be taken because you have them but instead when you need them. Lately my interest has been in ayahuasca. Seems from what I have read its more of a healing tool.

I tell you what, I'm not driving anywhere near "Medical LSD Dispensaries" :-)

No need, you can float :)

In case it wasn't obvious to anyone else, this post is from fall 2011.

This glowing report — based on a single dose of a naturally occurring, non-addictive, low-toxicity substance — sounds impossible. Surely one pill can’t succeed where months of traditional psychotherapy and antidepressants usually fail. According to science, that’s not how drugs work. It’s foreign to the model.

Really? Have people consumed so much lack of common sense kool-aid that they believe humans know better than the Earth? From a purely birkenstockian point of view, it should be obvious that these naturally occurring things are there to help us. Why else would endless species of plants/fungi/etc. happen to be hanging out at our feet?

The mistake we've made is that we're too skeptical. Instead of believing in what's right in front of us, we choose synthesized drugs and the ideals of people no more keyed into existence than you or I.

Be aware of what's around you and learn about why most of what they say is harmful or "illegal" isn't and shouldn't be. Start with marijuana.

The Earth is not an intelligent agent. The Earth doesn't "know" anything. Also, plenty of plants have evolved to be poisonous to prevent animals (including humans) from eating them, so you can't just blindly go around eating any mushroom or berry you find in nature. Natural does not always mean "good for you".

you can't just blindly go around eating any mushroom or berry you find in nature. Natural does not always mean "good for you

Of course it doesn't. That's not what I was suggesting. Rather, when people are told that something is illegal or cannot help them, for them to conduct research into it independently. Even better, seek out studies like the one mentioned in this article and participate in them.

Concerning the Earth as an intelligent agent, can we be so sure? It's been around for an awfully long time to not know a thing or two.

Wow, it only took us (the west) 60 years. That's what I call a progress! Not so fast please, a couple of billion people could live miserable lives before we stop the bullshitting around psychedelics and spirituality.

Interesting. I'm curious what measures they take to prevent a "bad trip"

If you are interested in this question, I recommend listening to the following recording of a talk given by Alicia Danforth, research assistant to Dr. Charles Grob (who ran the psilocybin research study mentioned in this article).[1] She goes in to quite a lot of detail as to exactly how they conducted their study, and what measures they took to help prevent bad trips.

As supplementary reading, see the Erowid page on Dr. Charles Grob,[2] a book called The Secret Chief Revealed by Myron J. Stolaroff (about a famous psychedelic therapist),[3] and The Psychedelic Experience FAQ.[4] The book and FAQ have lots of great suggestions for having positive, constructive trips.

One of the key things you can do to increase the odds of having a good trip is having a trusted, experienced guide or sitter. To that end, I recommend the following sitter guidelines: [5][6][7][8]

[1] - http://www.matrixmasters.net/archive/Playalogues/131-Danfort...

[2] - https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/grob_charles/grob_...

[3] - http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chief-Revealed-Myron-Stolaroff/...

[4] - https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_experi...

[5] - http://csp.org/nicholas/A59.html

[6] - https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/guides/guides_article2....

[7] - http://www.maps.org/gateway/%5B55%5D181-197.html

[8] - http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v09n1/09124mar.html

A lot of bad trips are caused by anxiety. This anxiety can come from: societies view on drugs, the person thinking they are going to die, the legality of what they are doing, lack of a knowledgable trip-sitter, to name a few. I think taking a psychedelic in a setting as described in the article will help remove a lot of those common triggers to a bad trip.

I imagine that being able to carefully control the purity, dosage and the environment will go a long way. It is unfortunate that it is impossible to get illegal drugs of known purity, concentration, and quality.

If you can get approval to possess a Schedule I substance from the DEA, you can purchase drugs such as LSD and psilocybin from companies that manufacture them. They also come with certificates of analysis describing their purity.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/etc/medialib/docs/Sigma/General_...

I've just read a very interesting book after seeing it mentioned in HN's earlier discussion of LSD. It's by Dr. Rick Strassman, who conducted the first trials of a psychodelic held in the US in 20 years (using a potent psychodelic called DMD). Even after his trial was approved by the FDA and DEA, he struggled to find a supplier for human-quality DMT, although he had already procured a sufficient quantity of laboratory-quality of DMT for testing purposes.

It's a very interesting book -- I highly recommend it [0]. He's not a strong writer in terms of narrative (I found the book's pacing to be jarring given the intensity of experiences described), but he's very precise and describes some very interesting work, and some amazing experiences had by his subjects [0].

0. http://www.rickstrassman.com/

Just make sure you do not do something silly like publish a book on how to make drugs using easy-to-find supplies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL

It is absolutely possible to get illegal drugs of known purity, concentration, and quality.

Indeed, but it requires knowledge, experience, and trust... each of which can be difficult to obtain in themselves.

Most of this stuff is easy enough to produce in a controlled, safe manner. There are suppliers for medical-grade cocaine, for example, as it's used in a small set of procedures.

Just look after a guy called "Heisenberg".

They don't say "this is to avoid a bad trip" but the article clearly explains how. EDIT: Actually, they do say "to avoid bad trips." I missed it the first time but noticed the description of the environments. Yup, it pays to actually read the article.

It also mentioned that they had staff on hand to help calm someone down if they started to have a bad reaction.

Fair enough, I had missed it.

Why did the title get changed to "psilocybin" when the article is clearly about both psilocybin and MDMA and even mentions the original LSD title?

The researchers deserve serious props for undertaking this research in this climate, and whoever approved their study proposals for doing so. The positive effects of halucinogens on depressed, dying, & addicted people have been "known" for quite some time but not rigorously tested. Hopefully this is as positive a sign as it seems.

EDIT: Here's an example - a meta-analysis in the Journal of Psychopharmacology shows that LSD seems to have a hugely beneficial effect on alcoholism http://www.nature.com/news/lsd-helps-to-treat-alcoholism-1.1...

I'm curious why you think these researchers deserve more props than any other researchers investigating helping people with terminal illness? And in what climate? now? 2009? 2010?

We live in a political climate where it is considered acceptable to have teams of soldiers attack civilian homes if there is even a suspicion that they are producing, transporting, or distributing the drugs described in this article. Our politicians firmly believe that propaganda promoting such approaches to drug policy should be forced down the throats of grade school children, and that those children should be asked to report their parents' activities to the government in the name of enforcing drug policy. That is a pretty rough political climate for a researcher investigating positive or medical uses for those drugs. There is also the issue of having to be careful not to tell the public how to manufacture these drugs in their kitchens, as Alexander Shulgin discovered after a team of soldiers attacked his lab.

Can you give more info on the soldiers attacking his lab? I have only found references to a raid on his home and lab by the DEA and local LEOs.

If men with assault rifles, body armor, grenades, who use military tactics in their operations are not soldiers, what do you call them? The DEA is a paramilitary force, soldiers in all but name.

I don't know why I did not pick up on that subtext. It must have been the attack component that threw me off. It is nice to see that there are no rhetoric asymmetries in the "war on drugs."

"If men with assault rifles, body armor, grenades, who use military tactics in their operations are not soldiers, what do you call them? "

Usually a Special Weapons and Tactics team and in Canada I think they are known as Emergency Task Forces. Does the DEA deploy units with fragmentation and/or incendiary grenades?

"Soldiers" here might not be a technical term.

Despite numerous older studies showing that psychedelics have positive effects in a number of medical cases, there is a very big "anti-psychedelics" climate in the US right now, making it harder to go further with the existing research.

I do not know what you mean by "making it harder to expound on the existing research." Maybe expound is not the right word?

EDIT: I understand now. Thanks for being decent about it. I'd love to know what clown downvoted me for not understanding your choice of words.

Poor word choice on my part, edited for (hopefully) the better. Much appreciated! :)

Expound is the exact right word. Dfc, are you a troll?

expound |ikˈspound| verb [ with obj. ] present and explain (a theory or idea) systematically and in detail

Not a troll and no expound was not the right word. The OP has admitted as much.

"Making it hard to explain and present existing research"

Why would the current climate make it hard to explain or talk about past research? The OP wanted to convey that the current climate makes it hard to move forward with the research and undertake new studies. When you expound on something you are not conducting new studies and moving forward.

Actually, in many circles it is often still taboo to speak positively of any currently illegal drugs. That includes mentioning research studies that found benefits to these drugs. People's careers can be affected if some people with anti-drug prejudices or an excessive concern with seeming "respectable" think you are advocating the use of currently illegal drugs.

In the USA you can't even do any medical research on some substances, like Cannabis, because they're classified as schedule 1. Apparently psilocybin is also a schedule 1 substance [1]. I don't have any words to articulate this mind-boggling stupidity.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act#Sched...

Presumably because we live in such an anti-"drug" climate that taking on this type of research could have a presumably negative impact on their careers; not to mention the extra effort to get something like this approved.

I don't think the general cultural feelings surrounding hallucinogens has changed so much since 2009?

RTFA:

The closing of the psychedelic mind involved the weaving of a fine-spun stigma and the application of indistinct professional pressure. “A subtle microphysics of power guided scientists away from further work on these compounds,” says Nicolas Langlitz, an anthropologist at the New School who studies psychedelic science. “The allocation of funding, having to guard one’s reputation, approval of research projects, recruitment of test subjects — it all led to a near-total breakdown of academic hallucinogen research.” Before the end of the ’60s, two leading lights in the field would bemoan the fact that interested and capable scientists were “turning their backs on psychedelics for fear of identification with irresponsible researchers.”

A lot of social and regulatory barriers stand in the way of any medical researcher who wants to use MDMA / mushrooms / LSD and other hallucinogens to help people with end-of-life depression and psychiatric issues.

They are to be complimented for persisting in the face of such obstacles.

Have you heard of "The War On Drugs"?

Interesting, but we live in a country where the Mayor of New York (Bloomberg) is attempting to actively restrict the use of narcotics for people in pain in order to keep them out of the hands of abusers.

We live in a pathetically immature culture.

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