So much talk about microdosing in the last few years. I have to wonder if it’s the result of people being too uncomfortable taking a regular dose. Fair enough, but I’ve only found real benefit from taking a moderate to high dosage.
This. I have a friend who microdoses. Whenever we trip he outright refuses to take a proper dose. I mean to each their own but anecdotally this is the exact type of person you’re describing.
I have similar stories. I believe it’s because psychedelics have crossed the threshold from being “irresponsible behavior” to “edgy behavior” which makes them “cool”. This is where peer pressure kicks in, and it’s where it becomes an in/out crowd thing. I have lots of friends who only take 1-2g max and spend a big chunk of their social life talking about how they love doing mushrooms.
Meanwhile I’ve done some pretty high doses and I don’t enjoy talking about it at all, because I consider it a largely personal experience.
it only takes one underestimated time to truly respect the power of psychedelics. it should be a requirement to be humbled atleast once by such an experience in life
There's a hint of gatekeeping in this comment. You seem to be saying that the people enjoying 1-2g with their friends are only doing it to be cool, while "real" mushroom fans like yourself do larger doses. Could an alternative explanation simply be that doing 1-2g with friends is actually a fun social experience, unlike the larger doses?
Imo it's a step in the right direction. Many drugs are used recreationally at high doses, but it turns out that at lower doses they can be used as actual medication.
"Megadosing" is also a word that can be seen around. Similar to the above, there are chemicals that do one thing at "normal" doses (as defined by companies/doctors), but can have significantly different effects at higher ones.
You have canine teeth for eating meat instead of tree fruits. Your body can also extract nutrients from this fungus versus merely passing it like if you ate some wood or something else entirely non-nutritious. You might be one of those people who are able to process lactose effectively. None of these things are unnatural to our species if we have natural mutations in our population that confer these adaptions.
Human consumption of a naturally occurring mushroom (food) that happens to contain psilocybin is absolutely a natural occurrence and as a result has a history of human consumption older than wine.
> Human consumption of a naturally occurring mushroom (food) that happens to contain psilocybin is absolutely a natural occurrence
Same could be said about death cap mushrooms. Something being natural or even being occasionally ingested doesn't make it any better. Natural, occasionally ingested organisms can kill you on the spot.
Pretty much anything you do alters your brain. The five senses, what's put in your body, how you move your body, the thoughts you have. Though doing a larger dose of psychedelics definitely does a lot more rewiring at once and should be done with extreme caution and making sure schizophrenia/psychosis doesn't run in the family.
Humans as we are are only about 300 thousand years old, we haven’t been doing anything for millions of years.
Animals though have been seeking out mind altering substances for all we can determine, for as long as there were mind altering substances.
The oldest human religions used and still use mild altering substances, it is Christianity which is weird for shunning them (and most of where the abstinence drive comes from) and it was mostly xenophobia targeted against non Christians.
Psilocybin is often just taken by eating mushrooms, when it isn’t, a little isolation and purification doesn’t make much difference.
This blurring of concepts is a glib debating technique. There's clearly a distinction to be made between taking a psychotropic drug and going for a run (I've done both). Yes, both affect the chemicals in your brain, but one of them is more direct and, if subjective experience is any guide, far more potent.
I think it's a good thing that these drugs are being studied but I suspect there are risks.
There are absolutely risks, but not to the degree that op's comment suggests.
If one is worried about a microdose, then one can choose to start with 1% of a microdose (or whatever minimal amount one can accurately measure) and then move up slowly.
Just like...exercise. Hence the forever present disclaimer: "Consult with your doctor before beginning this or any new exercise routine." One wouldn't start off with an ultramarathon when they could just walk around the block.
If, on the otherhand, you believe that _any_ amount is a risk, then at this stage it's up to you to provide that evidence. This isn't some new and mysterious chemical, it's been taken for millenia, intentionally or not.
The bigger issue is that people just assume that they don't need guidance or preparation. Or they ignore set and setting. Or they believes there's only one right dose or no such thing as a wrong dose. Or they simply don't know the dose because it's in whole mushroom form. And so they just take whatever they're told and then wait to see what happens.
These are where the risk comparison between exercise and psilocybin breaks down, because if you do make a mistake, you cannot abort the process as easily as you can with exercise. Once you've taken it, you're in for the ride.
But that's quite different from "it messes with your brain".
I dunno about you but just because I take a Tylenol every once in a while doesn't mean I subscribe to any new pill that Pfizer puts out there. I tend to minimize medicinal intake in general. Seems to be wise.
I minimize Tylenol intake just like I minimize new drugs entering my system. And no the idea that one uses Tylenol that they should also use actual psychedelics is completely dumb.
Exercise and microdosing together, it’s pretty good but moods are intense. Do feel more positive about the future on the day to day (current geopolitical situation notwithstanding)
That's why I prefer to run instead of using any of these "Otto mobiles". We have feet for a reason. Surgeons messing with my insides? No thanks. Vaccines? God almighty, no. /s
You are right. Ignore the naysayers. They are the worst kinda right. It is not known what effect you will have with these compounds, wether they are safe in all situations, cause unknown perception risks, not to mention health risks
If all is going great with your brain don’t change a thing. But in the case of not doing great why suffer and not try things that have worked for others for the fear and stigma of drugs/ plants and other therapies? Exercising helps a lot of people but not everyone though.
Can confirm! The ability it grants to evaluate a past experience without succumbing to the overwhelming emotions associated with said experience were invaluable in helping develop a different perspective, ultimately a more healthy one.
Well set trip. Microdosing I feel is more appropriate for non-traumatic / daily / typical stresses, or obtaining a mild peek at clearer consciousness / awareness.
A well set trip in my case as helped me personally where nothing else did. It had the same effect on friends that suffered from the same issue.
Also I will share that I have a sibling that suffers from depression. At one point we said okay we are going to try this in a controlled setting with friends. 6 months of happiness. This should be a regulated and available treatment.
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads.
If you wanted to point out specifically what you think is wrong with the study, that of course could make a fine contribution. But just slinging pejoratives only makes things worse, so please don't.
Yes, I'm aware of the rules, and I was careful not to level any personal attacks. It just gets a bit tiresome when absolutely terrible science that should be patently obvious is continually voted up on HN and nothing ever changes. Sometimes swear words seem the only appropriate response, especially as this particular article was voted to the #1 position.
I'm sure bad science does get tiresome, but unsubstantive name-calling comments are even more tiresome. The trick is to turn the arrow in the other direction.
Supplementary analyses indicated that combining psilocybin with HE and B3 did not impact changes in mood and mental health. However, among older microdosers combining psilocybin, HE and B3 was associated with psychomotor improvements relative to psilocybin alone and psilocybin and HE
IME Lion's Mane complements caffeine quite nicely. It largely eliminates any withdrawal symptoms after cessation, and noticeably takes the edge off when taking large caffeine doses. Otherwise it seems like a placebo supplement.
> There's no hidden knowledge or special secrets you learn about life from psychadelics.
No, but in a time of significant grief, psychadelics allowed me to process it in a completely different way. I made more progress in 6 hours than I'd made in 4 years with 2 of those in therapy. There's no deep universal truths to uncover, but depending on your mental health, there may be some deep personal blockages that can be... sidestepped?
I used recreationally a few times as well. Mixed results there, including one that sent me on a tailspin for a few months. Absolutely, use with care, with a good sitter, and mind your set and setting.
I concur with this. Shrooms changed my life. I hate to say this, but it what I imagine taking the red pill might be like. Suddenly I snapped out of the depressive spiral, and saw my surroundings and myself very clearly. It’s very hard to describe. It’s like being severely depressed and miserable, and then all of a sudden a snap of fingers you feel relief. The feeling of depression evaporates. For days or even weeks afterward, waking up with something I look forward to, and I bounded out of bed instead of dreading what was to come. Truly life-changing for me.
They're not for everybody. Sorry to hear how you learned what they are for you. There should be no peer pressure to engage in them, and knowledge and respect for what could happen, especially the first time.
However, they can provide a world of good to the psyche as well, I will attest to that, and the changes I made from them might never have occurred otherwise.
There are very different kinds of psychedelics with different effects as well. Blanket statements/policies for all of them should consider that.
Maybe you already had trauma, and psychedelics just gave you awareness of it. You're supposed to work through it when it happens. There are no bad trips, only difficult ones.
I understand what experienced psychonauts mean when they say that, but it is an incredibly useless and condescending thing to say to somebody who went in unprepared and was traumatized by the experience.
It's also useless to say "I was traumatized by psychedelics when I took them without any research, preparation nor guidance".
Imagine someone was complaining that nobody should ever drive cars because they were injured in a crash after having a go at it without licence nor experience.
With power comes great responsibility, psychedelics can bring positive effects as much it can bring negative effects. I got really fucked up with a moderate dosage, I was unable to code for months. But on the bright side, I was able to suddenly stop hair pulling, which is a condition I have since kid.
I am curious if there was something specific about nit being able to code or if you were experiencing issues in general.
My treatments with ketamine were done by an anesthesiologist and I told him I felt like we were playing a bit of "fuck around and find out" with this stuff.
I still want psychedelic therapy with psilocybin in a professional setting so I am interested in more datapoints around negative experiences especially from a peer in the same field.
After that dosage (wasn't my first try, BTW), I felt really well, the trip was very good, I felt light, I managed to deal with a lot of inner problems I have been carrying since kid.
But I was unable to sleep. I stayed awake for 3 days in a row, then I completely lost my mind, I was mixing reality with fantasy. My wife took me to emergency were I was given antipsychotics which broke that state and I was able to sleep.
But for the next weeks I had crying episodes out of nowhere and they gave me a higher AP dosages.
Slowly I was able to stabilize, but it took me months. The AP side effects were also awful.
Did the mushroom trip did this? Probably not, but it trigger the sleep deprivation which chain-reacted to something worse.
To balance out some of the negative testimony about psychedelics in this thread, let me say that they've helped me resolve deeply entrenched emotional issues and helped me crawl out of depression.
I've only done a handful of large doses, and even my therapist recommended it (and showed me some convincing experimental data). It's not a regular habit for me: maybe once or twice a year. Last year, I did a large amount of shrooms and just sat there and thought about things and ended up untying a really ugly knot of self hatred.
I have a friend that is a therapist in CA that has been part of a Ketamine trial. The feedback was it can be remarkably successful. One of the "features" of this type of therapy is it something that happens as needed vs the daily pills that are standard now that can have serious issues.
I do not like the numbness from the ketamine. I understand psilocybin is going to be a different experience that may not make me feel as out of control.
How long does the numbness from ketamine last? I never tried it and don’t need to, only have read about it, and numbness wasn’t one of them but I believe your account from your experience.
The heavy numbness ends about 10 minutes after the IV ends. I feel drunk and woozy / wobbly for about and hour to hour and a half and then just tired and weak and a little woozy for the next 4-6 hours.
There is now a ketamine nasal therapy that is approved by most insurance plans for medication resistant depression. I’ve been going through the process, and will get my first dose in the coming weeks.
This is an open label study which doesn't take into account the placebo effect (which we know is a large factor in depression, about 75% of the effect of antidepressants). This study even mentions that other placebo-controlled trials showed no effect in depression between placebo and microdosing.
Typical cohen's d effect size of antidepressants is 0.3. If the placebo is 75% of the response, that means a drug placebo has a d value of about 0.9. This study shows a d value of 0.39 for depression, which means it has about half the effect that we would expect to see simply from the placebo effect. So, either it is a very poor placebo, or the active ingredient has a negative effect on depression, or the participants weren't very depressed in the first place, or (more likely) we simply don't have a clue what the effectiveness actually is.
last year I have noted that the usual weed legalize talks are increasingly being joined by psychedelics, and especially psilocybin mushrooms, in conversations about “the Free World’s absolute necessity for legalization”.
The frequency of reports of new “mushroom research”, and the number of “mushroom researches” itself, skyrocketed back in the days of COVID, and began to wander through quite “white” media, rather than youthful e-magazines, similar even in design to a rebellious teenage T-shirt.
As early as the summer of 2021, while monitoring the psychological news aggregators, I noticed that a clear upward trend in our world was becoming the idea of legalizing smth new. Not some stupidly smoking marijuana, no. At 2021 that already was a thing of the past, it’s already happened. Now hallucinogens, aka psychedelics, are taking the legalize movement by storm. One of prominent news at 2021 were as such: “Psilocybin provokes rapid growth of neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, study shows”. “Small doses of psilocybin and ketamine increase motivation and attention in outsider rats, new study shows”. “One of the new fronts in modern psychotherapy is psychedelic drugs”.
Today I revisited one of these aggregators, and found, that the density of “mushrooming media bombs” has increased even more. Here are the headlines from just the last month (!):
May 4, 2022: “Large study concludes that psilocybin is a ‘relatively safe’ drug, and serious reactions to it are rare and short-lived” original publication in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
May 10, 2022: “Cannabis users expect cannabis-assisted therapy for depression to be effective along with psilocybin” original publication - in Cannabis , also a peer-reviewed scientific journal, despite the name.
June 2, 2022: “New research sheds light on the mysterious process by which psilocybin can quickly relieve symptoms of depression” original publication in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine.
It’s not hard to understand: if there’s research on a topic, it means there’s money allocated to it.
If a bunch of different universities (specifically regarding these publications - King’s College London, University of Oblani, University of Ontario, etc.) suddenly receive a bunch of money to research the same topic, it means that the topic has sponsors who are interested in publicizing it as widely as possible and involving the maximum number of researchers in it. And lets not forget, that every scientist who writes something about “mushrooms make you smart and relieve you from depression” already becomes somewhat hostage to his reputation and tends to defend the position he has expressed, just to keep his grant.
Of course, one can assume that this is actually bullshit and the result of “selective sampling statistics”. That there are actually a gigantic number of studies on all kinds of topics in the West all the time, and a bunch of journals publish their results every day.
The appearance of a pavilion about healthy hallucinogens at the World Economic Forum a decade ago was as likely as the appearance of a pavilion about “healthy carnal love for minors” or “racial differences in the quality of intelligence”. Pedophilia and racism are total taboo, and so were drugs. Until recently.
So, with all the above, if something that used to be unthinkable suddenly appears without hiding, it means that the good old bulldozer-based Overton Window has come into motion with a screech.
By the way, weed was also promoted in the first 10 years of th...
Growing up in the 90s I was told that marijuana was medicine and non addictive.
Today I have a thirty year marijuana habit that I can’t quit and now it’s being linked to the rise of schizophrenia.
Does anyone else feel the current topic of “MDMA medicine” and “mushrooms are medicine” may in fact be as wrong as “oxycontin isn’t addictive” was in the 90’s?
99 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadMeanwhile I’ve done some pretty high doses and I don’t enjoy talking about it at all, because I consider it a largely personal experience.
Do you mean in the 1960s, or was there also a time between then and now when drugs weren't cool?
A fun social experience is where cool happens.
"Megadosing" is also a word that can be seen around. Similar to the above, there are chemicals that do one thing at "normal" doses (as defined by companies/doctors), but can have significantly different effects at higher ones.
Exercise also improves your mood and mental health.
So saying "it's natural" is bs.
Probably not cows and pigs though. Maybe sobe birds. Maybe monkeys. Raw. Also no significant natural resistance to salmonella.
I'm sure I have exactly as much genetic adaptations to eating psylocybin mushrooms as I have for eating death caps.
Same could be said about death cap mushrooms. Something being natural or even being occasionally ingested doesn't make it any better. Natural, occasionally ingested organisms can kill you on the spot.
Animals though have been seeking out mind altering substances for all we can determine, for as long as there were mind altering substances.
The oldest human religions used and still use mild altering substances, it is Christianity which is weird for shunning them (and most of where the abstinence drive comes from) and it was mostly xenophobia targeted against non Christians.
Psilocybin is often just taken by eating mushrooms, when it isn’t, a little isolation and purification doesn’t make much difference.
I think it's a good thing that these drugs are being studied but I suspect there are risks.
If one is worried about a microdose, then one can choose to start with 1% of a microdose (or whatever minimal amount one can accurately measure) and then move up slowly.
Just like...exercise. Hence the forever present disclaimer: "Consult with your doctor before beginning this or any new exercise routine." One wouldn't start off with an ultramarathon when they could just walk around the block.
If, on the otherhand, you believe that _any_ amount is a risk, then at this stage it's up to you to provide that evidence. This isn't some new and mysterious chemical, it's been taken for millenia, intentionally or not.
The bigger issue is that people just assume that they don't need guidance or preparation. Or they ignore set and setting. Or they believes there's only one right dose or no such thing as a wrong dose. Or they simply don't know the dose because it's in whole mushroom form. And so they just take whatever they're told and then wait to see what happens.
These are where the risk comparison between exercise and psilocybin breaks down, because if you do make a mistake, you cannot abort the process as easily as you can with exercise. Once you've taken it, you're in for the ride.
But that's quite different from "it messes with your brain".
We mess with our Brains all the time; coffee, tea, alcohol, nicotine and different foods.
Not to mention sex!
--
Edit: Oops! Forgot;
Asprin, Paracetamol/Acetaminophen (Tylenol and Panadol) OTC and Prescription (lab produced) Pharmaceuticals
Next up is environmental, social, cultural, and all external sources of brain influence
<https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q='Acetaminophen/Paracetam...>
I knew a guy who did wingsuiting. An insanely dangerous "sport" where you whip along at 140 miles an hour, a few feet from the side of a mountain.
I said the usual "why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane?"
He gave me this self-justifying answer about how there are no perfectly good airplanes, and you can get killed in a regular plane crash.
You can rationalize anything if you really want to.
via Fight-or-flight Response : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response
Such an Adrenalin Rush! - Not to mention all the other self induced Neuroactive chemicals!
Also I will share that I have a sibling that suffers from depression. At one point we said okay we are going to try this in a controlled setting with friends. 6 months of happiness. This should be a regulated and available treatment.
"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads.
If you wanted to point out specifically what you think is wrong with the study, that of course could make a fine contribution. But just slinging pejoratives only makes things worse, so please don't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Criticism posted on another comment.
I don't think that's possible here. I'll probably just give up and turn my attention to more fruitful pursuits.
But I've never tried mixing it with psilocybin.
There's no hidden knowledge or special secrets you learn about life from psychadelics. It can give you persistent/permanent hallucination disdorders.
In fact I recommend staying away from them and focusing reality-- improving yourself, your community, building something useful/interesting, etc.
If you do choose to waste your time and do psychadelics: Be very careful. Don't overdo it.
No, but in a time of significant grief, psychadelics allowed me to process it in a completely different way. I made more progress in 6 hours than I'd made in 4 years with 2 of those in therapy. There's no deep universal truths to uncover, but depending on your mental health, there may be some deep personal blockages that can be... sidestepped?
I used recreationally a few times as well. Mixed results there, including one that sent me on a tailspin for a few months. Absolutely, use with care, with a good sitter, and mind your set and setting.
However, they can provide a world of good to the psyche as well, I will attest to that, and the changes I made from them might never have occurred otherwise.
There are very different kinds of psychedelics with different effects as well. Blanket statements/policies for all of them should consider that.
I understand what experienced psychonauts mean when they say that, but it is an incredibly useless and condescending thing to say to somebody who went in unprepared and was traumatized by the experience.
Imagine someone was complaining that nobody should ever drive cars because they were injured in a crash after having a go at it without licence nor experience.
My treatments with ketamine were done by an anesthesiologist and I told him I felt like we were playing a bit of "fuck around and find out" with this stuff.
I still want psychedelic therapy with psilocybin in a professional setting so I am interested in more datapoints around negative experiences especially from a peer in the same field.
But I was unable to sleep. I stayed awake for 3 days in a row, then I completely lost my mind, I was mixing reality with fantasy. My wife took me to emergency were I was given antipsychotics which broke that state and I was able to sleep.
But for the next weeks I had crying episodes out of nowhere and they gave me a higher AP dosages.
Slowly I was able to stabilize, but it took me months. The AP side effects were also awful.
Did the mushroom trip did this? Probably not, but it trigger the sleep deprivation which chain-reacted to something worse.
I've only done a handful of large doses, and even my therapist recommended it (and showed me some convincing experimental data). It's not a regular habit for me: maybe once or twice a year. Last year, I did a large amount of shrooms and just sat there and thought about things and ended up untying a really ugly knot of self hatred.
I think it's a good way to internalize therapy
I am planning to visit oregon in 2023 so I can receive therapy with psilocybin which hopefully has less negative side effects.
Edit: typo
I did IV infusions which is nice because it can be stopped compared to IM injections, nasal spray or lozenges.
I do not like the numbness from the ketamine. I understand psilocybin is going to be a different experience that may not make me feel as out of control.
Typical cohen's d effect size of antidepressants is 0.3. If the placebo is 75% of the response, that means a drug placebo has a d value of about 0.9. This study shows a d value of 0.39 for depression, which means it has about half the effect that we would expect to see simply from the placebo effect. So, either it is a very poor placebo, or the active ingredient has a negative effect on depression, or the participants weren't very depressed in the first place, or (more likely) we simply don't have a clue what the effectiveness actually is.
The frequency of reports of new “mushroom research”, and the number of “mushroom researches” itself, skyrocketed back in the days of COVID, and began to wander through quite “white” media, rather than youthful e-magazines, similar even in design to a rebellious teenage T-shirt.
As early as the summer of 2021, while monitoring the psychological news aggregators, I noticed that a clear upward trend in our world was becoming the idea of legalizing smth new. Not some stupidly smoking marijuana, no. At 2021 that already was a thing of the past, it’s already happened. Now hallucinogens, aka psychedelics, are taking the legalize movement by storm. One of prominent news at 2021 were as such: “Psilocybin provokes rapid growth of neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, study shows”. “Small doses of psilocybin and ketamine increase motivation and attention in outsider rats, new study shows”. “One of the new fronts in modern psychotherapy is psychedelic drugs”.
Today I revisited one of these aggregators, and found, that the density of “mushrooming media bombs” has increased even more. Here are the headlines from just the last month (!):
May 4, 2022: “Large study concludes that psilocybin is a ‘relatively safe’ drug, and serious reactions to it are rare and short-lived” original publication in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
May 10, 2022: “Cannabis users expect cannabis-assisted therapy for depression to be effective along with psilocybin” original publication - in Cannabis , also a peer-reviewed scientific journal, despite the name.
June 2, 2022: “New research sheds light on the mysterious process by which psilocybin can quickly relieve symptoms of depression” original publication in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine.
It’s not hard to understand: if there’s research on a topic, it means there’s money allocated to it.
If a bunch of different universities (specifically regarding these publications - King’s College London, University of Oblani, University of Ontario, etc.) suddenly receive a bunch of money to research the same topic, it means that the topic has sponsors who are interested in publicizing it as widely as possible and involving the maximum number of researchers in it. And lets not forget, that every scientist who writes something about “mushrooms make you smart and relieve you from depression” already becomes somewhat hostage to his reputation and tends to defend the position he has expressed, just to keep his grant.
Of course, one can assume that this is actually bullshit and the result of “selective sampling statistics”. That there are actually a gigantic number of studies on all kinds of topics in the West all the time, and a bunch of journals publish their results every day.
Well, that’s a fair point, but there’s another piece of news that might suggest that my paranoia is not so unfounded. Large quote from publication about a very important event on WEF: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/01/psychedelic...
The appearance of a pavilion about healthy hallucinogens at the World Economic Forum a decade ago was as likely as the appearance of a pavilion about “healthy carnal love for minors” or “racial differences in the quality of intelligence”. Pedophilia and racism are total taboo, and so were drugs. Until recently.
So, with all the above, if something that used to be unthinkable suddenly appears without hiding, it means that the good old bulldozer-based Overton Window has come into motion with a screech.
By the way, weed was also promoted in the first 10 years of th...
Today I have a thirty year marijuana habit that I can’t quit and now it’s being linked to the rise of schizophrenia.
Does anyone else feel the current topic of “MDMA medicine” and “mushrooms are medicine” may in fact be as wrong as “oxycontin isn’t addictive” was in the 90’s?