LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety with a life-threatening disease
jop.sagepub.com
jop.sagepub.com
Even limited rescheduling allowing medical treatment would be a good thing IMHO, but the reality of the US medical system is such that that the <$5 dose of LSD is likely to be dwarfed by a $3,000+ bill for clinical oversight and additional fees for administrative compliance with drug scheduling protocols.
LSD is not chemically addictive and is basically non toxic in that there is no known LD50. On a pure physical level it is very safe. Psychologically the reality is more mixed. If used in moderation with some sense of responsibility, it can be neutral or even beneficial. But "acid casualties" really are a thing. Heavy, irresponsible abuse of LSD and similar drugs can really destroy a person's mind. I've seen people who really abused these things and sort of never came back.
While there appears to be no conventional toxicity, it would not surprise me to learn later that there is some potential for harm at the neurological level. If so it might be more a result of trauma or stress due to the effects of abuse than direct toxicity. In any case the abusers I saw did seem mentally impaired, in some cases never recovering.
So when someone asks me about these things, I always tell them to do a lot of homework on them and to be very careful. I say the same thing to people who want to play with stimulants or nootropics. In general extreme care and self awareness should be exercised when putting anything into your body, especially if it affects your mind.
Most of the people from the psychedelic world who seem to have their heads screwed on seem to advocate their use rarely, under careful setting, with at least one other experienced person that you trust, and a lot of introspection and time in between to integrate the experience.
Anecdotally harm seems to occur when recklessness precludes integration, as if not processing the experience leads to some kind of overload and trauma. It may be a form of burnout leading to something like PTSD, which can actually manifest physical brain damage. Look up some of the stuff on child abuse and PTSD victims and neurological effects.
On the upside, I have seen dramatic evidence that these things can lead to deep positive breakthroughs. They might also be able to act as "steroids for creativity," allowing extreme feats of lateral integration that are hard to even imagine in ordinary consciousness. These compounds are fascinating and powerful tools that should be studied with care. They should neither be marketed recklessly as enlightenment in a pill or ignorantly banned by fear-mongering reactionaries.
LSD is like riding a bicycle but DMT is more flying in a spaceship that actually travels through dimensions. There seems to be a much lower or non-existant risk of a bad trip. (Unlike the version you drink, which can take you to hell and back.)
For one, while 5-meo-dmt is endogenous to many organisms (Bufo Alvarius/Colorado River Toad/Sonoran Desert Toad being one of them) it is not found in the human brain.
It's also said to be more intense in an uncomfortable direction than DMT.
Try again with straight DMT.
As to your question, I don't think you've listened to much Stanhope if you're asking that.
With a breakthrough dose (e.g. 4 hits), you simply cannot believe what is happening as it's happening. It feels like you are in a dimension of hyperspace with a sensation of intelligent forces communicating with you; laughing at you in a ultra high definition resolution of colors, geometric shapes and positivity. It feels more real than reality. Whatever it is, it is certainly a grand mystery of life.
As a friend who's done both described the latter, "Load universe into cannon, aim at head, and fire."
And, as I said in my original comment, drinking DMT in Ayahuasca can take you through a hellish experience.
This is exactly how I would describe my experience with DMT. Once it hit me, I immediately felt as if nothing bad could ever happen to me. All tension, physically and mentally, was immediately removed from my body. Pure comfort and excitement. I'd never felt that level of calmness in my entire life even if everything that was happening to me visually was crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#Machine_elves
(And now I have to listen to Shpongle's Divine Moments of Truth song, which perhaps coincidentally clocks in at a touch over 10 mins long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1-2d6wxudE )
Another thing I would like to add is that DMT is the only psychedelic that I know of (maybe mushrooms can hit this place at certain very high dosages) where open-eye reality can be completely transformed, when looking around you are no longer laying on your couch but in some kind of pod and the pipe you are holding suddenly contains a beautiful jewel and is embroidered with some kind of alien language and where, with each subtle movement of your eyes the pod you find yourself in transforms into different shapes with different panels, each wired to your optic nerve. Holy fucking shit people: what is going on out there? More than meets the eye. Its remarkable and weird and beautiful and scary and the greatest of mysteries.
Apologies for the total insufficiency of my words. Everyone -- everyone -- should try it sometime, and particularly atheists and general skeptics. Your faith in your own certainty will be dismantled immediately and forever. The experience is anything and everything but a mere hallucination; its like turning the frequency on a dial and suddenly hitting some kind of super powerful organic SETI message that knows you are going to arrive.
When it hits me (DMT) I feel a warmth spread throughout my entire body. I've done DMT somewhere between 300-500 times, though it's been years now.
so, comparable to MDA?
Funny, I would describe my experiences with meditation using exactly the same words. Combined with really wonky visual effects.
(with meditation in the zen-buddhist context I think this perception alteration is probably just considered a potentially harmfull side-effect.)
I see no harm in chemically induced warmth and comfort but chemicals are not the only thing that can make us experience altered states of perception and relaxation.
I would definetly understand why this would be beneficial in a therapeutic setting.
We are probably still laking in proper terminology but this anxiety reduction caused by these techniques is something that really should become part of the general medical practice. I think some people become substance abusers because they seek this release from their inner turmoil and loose themselves in excess or desperation.
I would definetly understand why this would be beneficial in a therapeutic setting.
The utility of psychedelics in therapy has been a "known quantity" to the medical community since the 1950's at least, so it's good to see that mainstream acceptance of such is gaining ground.
Scientists had already determined the usefulness of LSD and other psychedelics in Psychotherapy of this sort back in 1950 (http://www.psymon.com/psychedelia/articles/busch.htm), but since the controlled substance act in 1970, it hasn't been possible to do any real science in this area. Good to see this finally starting to change.
For a lot of people, an emotional breakdown can act as the catalyst for a life changing emotional breakthrough.
edit to add: 'bad trip' is a subjective term.
A. An unpleasant experience where the user is forced to confront uncomfortable realities about themselves and the "world". This is usually a feature of most trips, it could last a few minutes or hours. This can often be a net-positive experience as the user navigates their way out of it and realize the baselessness of some of their more troubling assumptions.
B. An experience where the user entirely loses touch with "reality". Sometimes this resembles the symptoms of a very strong panic-attack. It includes feelings of imminent death or the feeling that the user has permanently altered their psychology forever or has gone irreparably insane. This can last for the entire duration of the trip and have permanent, lasting effects long after the drug has worn off.
As someone mentioned further up the thread, "A" can sometimes spiral out of control into "B".
Also, I've found "bad" trips to be just as valuable psychologically as "good" ones, though they can seem life threatening in the moment.
But I know people who have sworn by it as a treatment.
Now that legalization is becoming a reality, maybe we'll get better science on this issue and find out the what, when, how and whom of its effects on anxiety.
Anecdotally, it used to make me relaxed and only occasionally a little anxious if I had to unexpectedly play "straight" while under the influence.
Nowadays it's like a 50/50 shot whether it will just give me a "buzz" or whether it will make me incredibly anxious. I've mostly chalked it up to the stronger stuff I'm more likely to come across now that I'm not a broke college kid buying the cheap stuff but I also think a large part of it is that I'm a different person that I was 15-20 years ago and perhaps I just don't react as well to it anymore.
Either way, I mostly abstain these days except when I'm in a situation where the potential for anxiety is incredibly low.
If you smoke a Sativa-dominant strain, you will be lost in your own head for a good while, and will experience paranoia/anxiety as a common side-effect.
Cannabis Indica, however (White Widow, Hash Plant, etc) is a full-on couch-lock body high. I have high anxiety, and after smoking a bowl of indica, I'm about as mellow as can be.
My trip was pretty normal, but I freaked out in the weeks and months afterwards. I knew next to nothing about LSD, and managed to whip myself up into an anxious (also ignorant) frenzy about the dangers of the drug, the possibility that I would now go insane, etc. These were not pleasant or productive times.
So, two bits of advice for anyone with anxiety thinking about hallucinogens:
- Know the facts.
- Be aware of possible negative interactions with popular meds (e.g. SSRIs, etc.)
Note: I haven't done LSD again. I'd like to try Ectasy, but I'm on meds for anxiety/depression that don't mix well with MDMA.
If you look at actual definitions of the word 'religion' used by academics who study religion, there is actually a pretty tight relationship. E.g.
One does not necessitate the other, but that does not mean they are anywhere near as dissociated as you suggest.
Large organizations such as churches all have politics and structure beyond the "core service" they provide. And as social groups they evoke tribalism, cliques, etc, etc. The religious services are one aspect of these organizations that are designed to offer spiritual experiences to the congregation. The organization specifies the framework for these events. The fact that the organization has other aspects as well does not mean it would not fulfill this core service. Does it fulfill it, and to whom, is another question entirely.
We probably still lack proper psychological vocabulary to discuss spirituality as a phenomenon of human psyche in disconnect from the metaphysical frameworks that religions offer.
As an atheist, I feel "spirituality" - in this context it means perhaps most of all a certain mood and a state of mind - is very important to me. I just don't connect it to any religious framework. I understand that you mean that organized religion does not necessarily have anything to do with spiritual experience but I still think it's quite incorrect to make this into a generalization.