Psychadelics seem to have the ability to leave the user (after the actual 'trip' has worn off) in a state of heightened receptiveness for a long duration (length is different dependent on the drug, but counts weeks in some cases). This state is called a 'critical period' and is usually experienced in childhood.
This state might allow for easier digestion of new material, forming new habits or skills or allow the user to be taken advantage of (Charles Manson, and his LSD fueled cult, is mentioned in this regard).
It's worth noting this is not new knowledge, it's completely obvious to anyone who's tried psychedelics. I haven't properly dug through the paper for all the details yet, maybe there's some interesting nuggets of new insight in there.
But so far it's looking like this is further confirming what us psychonauts have always sort of understood. It's very encouraging to get rigorous science to back the intuition up though. It will obviously help guide future research in clinical applications.
Interesting factoid in the preamble: the biochemical basis of the addictive nature of social media?
> "Oxytocin and serotonin, she found, work together in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens to produce the good feelings that come from social interaction."
LSD and similar drugs can definitely improve one's 3D-visualization capabilities, but I think this requires putting in a fair amount of work on the concepts beforehand. It's reminiscent of the saying, 'chance favors the prepared mind', so if you spend say a month working extensively with 3D models of molecules, proteins, platonic solids and what not and then (under controlled conditions) ingest a psychedelic, a cognitive breakthrough is possible, such as gaining the ability to visualize what a 3D object looks like after successive x-, y-, z- axis rotations and so on, which is useful skill in many fields, from auto mechanic to protein chemist to structural architect.
Nice to see this subject finally being studied in a rigorous manner, at least.
> "Oxytocin and serotonin, she found, work together in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens to produce the good feelings that come from social interaction."
Well, this supports my hypothesis on why talking to people was a really good coping mechanism for ADHD. As far as I can tell, oxytocin isn't dampened(?) like dopamine presumably is.
(I say presumably because of the specific symptoms I had and also the specific ways in which stimulants help with them, but I've never had my brain dissected or anything to confirm, seeing as I'm still alive and all.)
"There is, of course, a catch. For mice, having a critical period open for too long causes neural disruptions. Some experts fear that, for people, carelessly flinging wide the doors of personal development could put the very core of their identity in jeopardy by erasing the habits and memories that make them them. A critical period is also a time of vulnerability. While childhood can be filled with wonder and magic, children are also more impressionable. “We can really screw kids up much more than we can adults,” she says. This is why responsible adults intuitively know to protect children from exposure to potentially scary or disturbing material. Or, as Dölen puts it, “You want to teach children new things, but you don’t want them to learn Japanese from Japanese porn.”
An adult who undergoes this kind of treatment to heal PTSD could, in the wrong hands, end up traumatized further. In the worst scenarios, patients could be vulnerable to abuse. Unscrupulous therapists or other predators could try to use psychedelics to manipulate others, Dölen says. This is more than paranoid speculation. Quite a few experts, Dölen included, think that Charles Manson’s ability to completely brainwash his followers relied on the high doses of LSD he regularly gave them prior to bombarding their minds with hate-filled lectures and murderous orders."
Can you expand on this? I find it hard to understand what similarities you see to what children today are being “exposed” to and Charles Manson drugging people with LSD and convincing them to kill other people.
I think they're suggesting that young children--in their critical (mental) periods--can somehow turn gay or transgendered due to exposure/normalisation of gay and trans people.
Except there's no science to back this up. All the scientific articles I've ever seen on the topic of gender and sexuality seem to indicate that the critical period for those attributes develop in the womb and not during childhood.
The most likely reason for such deviations from what conservatives would consider, "normal sexuality" is endocrine-distrupting pollution. The kind that causes amphibians to change their sex, for example.
> The most likely reason for such deviations from what conservatives would consider, "normal sexuality" is endocrine-distrupting pollution. The kind that causes amphibians to change their sex, for example.
Ironically, conservatives as a voting bloc will be the first to vote to reduce environmental protections and regulations attempting to reduce this (or any) pollution.
> I think they're suggesting that young children--in their critical (mental) periods--can somehow turn gay or transgendered due to exposure/normalisation of gay and trans people.
My personal belief is that the exposure/normalization is good because it helps people discover themselves. And I read that comment somewhat differently: exposure to these concepts might be controversial because parents have such different impressions of what is "right", so they might end up accidentally brainwashing their child. It already happens a lot, and people obviously don't want more of it.
Sexuality is so culturally determined though. I mean it seems rather obvious you will get more experimentation in sexuality without rigid taboos and religious dogma against experimentation.
We pretend like people don't get turned on by their own hand.
There's so many people on earth that someone is going to be turned on from everything, but is getting turned on by your own hand actually common? I have never heard this one before.
On one side, you see adults who believe that sexuality and cross-gender identification are immutable, or at least practically immutable. Their goal is to expose e.g. heterosexual kids to the idea that some of their peers will be different from them so that they aren't shocked and scandalized by it later, then lash out unfairly as a result of prejudice against the unknown.
On the other side, you see adults who equate deviations from acceptable expressions of sexuality and gender - you don't see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little girls - as being inherently obscene. They naturally want to protect children from what they see as obscene and abnormal.
They both believe that they have children's best interests at heart.
That said, based on all available data, it seems like sexuality and gender identification are mostly immutable and that truth will slowly win out in the end. For example, nearly every conservative has met a little boy who acted remarkably girlish since toddlerhood and grew up to be gay unsurprisingly. Seeing that process play out, then claiming that gayness is a social contagion requires cognitive dissonance.
It's a part of the process of social change.... The last huge wave of homophobia that had legal consequences was in the 1970's and was led by a group called "Save the Children" -- it's all just the same dynamics repeating, except today it's more-so around broader gender norms, as opposed to a narrow focus on "men sleep with women". This video does a great job of laying it out through that sort of lens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qUxa30SFA
> Very few conservatives in 2023 are riled up by homosexuality.
This is absolutely not the case at the populist grassroots level. There are regular panics and outpourings of hatred for pride events, books mentioning homosexuality are outright banned in schools, gay teachers are targeted for harassment and fired. My state just passed a law banning drag shows, which have been a part of gay culture for decades.
Genuine question: do you live in a culturally conservative area? Do you have evangelical Christians in your social circles?
I don’t live in a red state but I was raised in the most socially conservative area of Canada and I do have a number of religious and evangelical friends though I was raised atheist. Granted I do now live in the gayest neighbourhood in Canada.
The level of homophobia I witnessed and experienced in the nineties was on another order than what exists today, there is absolutely no comparison (I’m not gay but was routinely called a fag even by strangers because I was a skinny kid with long hair and had gay friends). In the nineties I would read conservative magazines that had ads in them pushing conspiracy theories about how the NAZI leadership were all gay. DOMA was a huge issue that ate up a lot of national politics in 2004, even California voted against gay marriage in a referendum. In 2012 Obama was still compelled to campaign in defense of DOMA and was openly supportive of marriage only between men and women (though interestingly the earliest activists for marriage equality came from the centre-right (Sullivan and Rauchman)).
Now the nuttiest MAGA republicans all love George Santos, who was a literally drag queening in Brazil and Peter Thiel who got a massive cheer when he keynoted the 2016 convention and said “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.” Unthinkable even 4 years prior. One poll of gay men in 2020 shows 46% support for Trump. [0] On the more traditional Republican side of things (Dispatch conservatives and Reason Libertarians) it’s hard to find many living authors who are more valourized than Deirdre McClosky who has been trans for 30 years.
It’s possible that homophobia has increased a bit in the last few years amongst social conservatives, but it still isn’t close to anything like it was even a decade ago. So if it has increased, and if young people are reverting to viewing sex as a binary according to a recent Pew poll [1] the question is why. Partly it’s the weird corporate and state monomania around the topic. But more than that, as I stated above, it seems to me to be mixed with blowback to gender ideology which has been conflated with gay rights, even though it is a very different and contradictory thing with a whole separate host of questions around medical ethics and educating children that many don’t find to be consistent with the positive message that universalized gay rights - you’re fine the way you were born and you don’t need to change anything to be accepted.
The common thread between homophobia and transphobia is a dislike of gender non-conformity. Since the days of Ernst Rohm [0] there has been an element of the gay community convinced that gender non-conforming gays - femmes - were the real problem. There are plenty of straight conservatives who are willing to play along with this for a time too since a masculine man isn't hard to accept as long as you don't think about what he does in his bedroom.
What you call "gender ideology" - a dogwhistle similar to Trans Identified Male and Trans Identified Female, acronyms specifically chosen to aggravate trans people by spelling out stereotypically female and male names - is, in some ways, everything that conservative gays and conservative straights disliked about stereotypical homosexuals distilled into its purest form. It violates the taboo of males being overly feminine (queens) and females being overly masculine (d*kes). It's also why drag queens, who are not transgender, are being swept up into the current moral panic.
It's strange to watch anti-trans activists make a big fuss about trans people changing their physical appearance, then go out and support things like drag bans which are also being used to prevent trans people from appearing in public [1]. Those bans are 100% about forcing people to wear certain clothing. I feel like legislating people's wardrobes according to the sex they were assigned at birth really gives away what's really going on here.
Even if all trans people stopped getting any hormones or surgeries tomorrow and even if they stopped using the pronouns that they feel fit them, and even if they stopped using the restrooms that fit them they would still be hated and attacked. They would be attacked for the same reason that feminine gay men and masculine gay women have always taken the brunt of homophobia.
Because what people hate is gender non-conformity. They want males to be reasonably masculine and wear clothing that is considered stereotypically male, and vice versa for females. The talk about scary medical procedures and men and women being erased and even fairness in sports is just a way of making that impulse sound reasonable and justified.
The LGB alliance are a weird one to mention, they have basically no grassroots members at all -- they popped up out of nowhere a few years ago, the average LGBT person in the UK doesn't know they exist at all.
They perform no advocacy to speak of within the UK except for pursuing attack lines against trans people. They're based at 55 Tufton Street which just so happens to also be where a bunch of very curiously linked conservative think tanks promoting anti-climate change, anti-immigrant populist politics are centered. They're mysteriously mixed closely with American groups like the heritage foundation. Oddly they started getting cited a bunch by openly transphobic BBC journalists, ostensibly for "balance" when discussing the rights of trans people.
I cannot think of a more obvious example for astroturfing than this group. They have literally zero presence in real people's lives the way you'd expect a charity to, they instead pop up wherever anti-trans rhetoric appears online and in papers, providing a denigrating voice to whoever needs it. They provide no services and give no advice -- here's to hoping they lose their charitable status when the Good Law Project's appeal concludes later this year.
Unclear on why the other comment was flagged, I'll pull just the facts through to this one.
> It's office space that's situated conveniently close to Parliament, and isn't just used by conservative think tanks. For example, Feeding Britain (https://feedingbritain.org), a charity dedicated towards solving hunger in the UK, and headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is also based at this address.
This is an extremely selective statement, there are 9 businesses stationed at 55 Tufton street and every other bar Feeding Britain is controversial. Some have links to far right populist ventures, even the other charities like the Taxpayer's Alliance actually "[exploit] the taxpayer rather than protecting their interests as they claim to do"[1]
Rather than going to the LGB alliance's site to read who they say they are, I'd rather believe in their actions over their words.
* They have argued it is not homophobic to oppose same sex marriage
* They have argued against a ban on conversion therapy for trans people
* They have suggested the "+" on "LGBTQ+" promotes beastiality
* They specifically excluded the names of trans victims from their condolences list after the Colorado Springs night club shooting
Fifty LGBT organisations pushed back against the LGB alliance being given charitable status. Plenty more have branded them a hate group. I think these longer lasting perspectives are far more telling than the autobiography from a group who came into existence in 2019.
Calling gender affirming care "gay conversion therapy" is a disingenuous tactic deployed by anti-trans activists. One of the most common things that parents who disown their trans kids say is "why can't you just be gay" so pitching it as conversion therapy is very... odd.
You even illustrate this point yourself when you say:
> Very few conservatives in 2023 are riled up by homosexuality.
but also...
> the current trend of medicalizing gender as a form of gay conversion therapy
Kenneth Zucker's whole practice was geared, in fact, toward converting trans kids into gay kids. He says himself in his writing that being homosexual is preferable to being transsexual, since the latter requires medical intervention. The thing is, trans people and gay people have different needs and desires. They aren't the same group. So it's wrong to try to force gay kids to be trans or trans kids to be gay. But these days what you'll find is trans kids being pushed to be gay. A perfect inversion of the image you've painted.
The reason I "conflate" transsexuality (the word has two s's, also nobody uses it anymore, you should just say 'being transgender') with being gay is because the very same arguments and tactics used against gay people in the 80's - it's a mental illness, a social contagion, they're grooming kids, etc... - is being used again against trans people today. There was even a bathroom and women's sports panic in the 80's around lesbians in women's sports "preying" on straight girls.
Trans people had been considered merely a part of the gay community, along with other gender non-conforming people who may today identify as non-binary, until relatively recently. The fight for gay rights benefitted trans people, but we're at a point now where they have their own struggles, like the struggle for medical treatment.
It's a struggle that's been fought since the 70's when Janice Raymond wrote "The Transsexual Empire" and worked with the Reagan administration to make it more difficult for trans people to get medical treatment. Nothing about it is new, except for the alliance between conservative Christians and secular anti-trans activists - an unholy union if I've ever seen one.
> When you disambiguate things it’s not hard to see the current trend of medicalizing gender as a form of gay conversion therapy
It is very hard to see it that way, gender dysphoria is not, and does not particularly correlate with sexual attraction to the gender of your AGAB; exclusive attraction to the gender opposite gender identity is less common than than both exclusive attraction to the same gender and bisexuality among trans people in America. If it were predominantly “gay conversion therapy”, you'd expect it to be predominantly people who had same gender attraction based on AGAB transitioning so that their target gender would result in that being opposite gender attraction. But the evidence doesn't support that.
It's a fantasy constructed by anti-trans, anti-gay forces to try to turn the successful movement against conversion therapy into an asset for them in dividing their natural opponents, but you have to be pretty ignorant to fall for it.
> you don't see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little girls
You must have one heck of a filter bubble of what you're seeing in the world if you're not seeing conservatives complain about child beauty pageants. There was a massive conservative backlash to a Netflix documentary about child beauty pageants and the conservative internet meme landscape is full of content against "groomers" and anything that involves sexuality and children.
the meme of "groomers" is just alt-right shorthand for anyone who holds the first viewpoint described by OP -- it's an epithet used against people they dislike, not an accurate criticism to be taken literally
for a good illustration of this, examine the politics of people who organize, attend, and participate in actual underage beauty pageants in the US -- the last US president, for example
it's not surprising, because the point of beauty pageants is to reinforce the conservative stereotype that a woman's job is to stand there and look pretty
you'll also note that, as mentioned above, conservatives don't apply the term to breastaurants when children are present there -- I didn't see a response to that, and it bears repeating
Nah. That would be because one political party sustains itself by keeping it's voter base on a treadmill of fear and outrage, is moving strongly towards authoritarianism, and has a large contingent specifically intent on implementing a flavor of religious fascism called Dominionism (cf. "Seven Mountians Mandate").
These latest "topics in the culture wars" are simply that, the latest usable tools that can be used, along with exaggerating and flat-out lying about the topics, to maximize the outrage of their voter base to drive turnout.
Meanwhile, it also helps the authoritarian causes to maximize the demonization of these same "other" minority groups, and trans groups are both easy and fresh targets. (Nevermind the facts: there are essentially zero cases of people in drag being any kind of threat to children, while there are literally thousands of cases of religious 'leaders' from the very same sects, sexually abusing children, with new cases every day.)
"That would be because one political party sustains itself by keeping it's voter base on a treadmill of fear and outrage,"
Pot calling the kettle black right here
Fear of a concerted effort to remove rights to everything from free speech, to reading books, to healthcare, to voting and actively destroying the independence of institutions whose independence is required to maintain democracy is exactly the same as fabricated fear ginned up with lies about minorities such as trans, Jews, and blacks.
If you want to play at the pot-kettle game level, I'd point out that your statement is mere spouting of the standard line of the deluded herd. Not suitable for this forum. Please bring some facts next time.
> An adult who undergoes this kind of treatment to heal PTSD could, in the wrong hands, end up traumatized further.
There's a lot of variables there. I can only speak to my experience. I started seeing psychedelics getting talked about in veterans circles and was curious about them. My trauma stems from many sources, but what's common is a lost of innate trust, and the end result is that trust is easier to tear down quickly than build up. Not great for healthy relationships, communication, and a number of life's necessities. I decided to wait on trying them and went about doing things like CBT to change my behavior and focus on getting out of this anxiety riddled loop I was in.
Fast forward a decade and I was really at a point where I just needed help letting go of my trauma. I'd dealt with it, there was nothing more to be done, yet still the door would not shut. If you're at a place where the metaphorical door won't shut, psychedelics can be a helpful tool. You're really going to already need to be in a place where you can be mindful (present) and focus on what you want to change. After you've tripped you really need to unpack where your mind went and why; that's to say separate the garbage from the work to be done.
Not everyone should do psychedelics just because they're seeking healing. They can provide that, but you need to be in the right place and willing to do the work. Being triggered in the middle of a trip is a good way to really re-traumatize yourself in the way that reading about trauma identical to yours can be traumatizing.
Most of the psychedelic research I've seen boils down to "take psychedelics and do stuff to get a result, here's why you get the result".
You can absolutely take psychedelics and do stuff yourself.
The American Medical Association says 'no no this is so unsafe, you need a Physician who completed US residency, doesnt matter if they are a lifelong expert in the craft from Europe, you pay our cartel or else. Ignore our blood letting, opioid, and ivermectin dark pasts.'
I dream of a science based medical system in the future.
The scientific models of the past were so dumb. Like the ancient Humoral Theory, which modeled health as `health = fn(blood, phlegm, yellow bile, blackBile)`. Or models like Ayurveda which is roughly `health = fn(Vata, Pitta, Kapha)`.
Modern science has put all those dumb ideas to rest!
Now we know that the true model is: `health = fn(bigPharmaMed1, bigPharmaMed2, bigPharmaMed3)`.
Seems to be CBT therapy. I’m not sure if I would recommend DYI if only because it’s very hard to stick to a lesson (or any other) plan when you’re on shrooms. Just practically - it’s very hard to read for example
You can experience the world like a little child again. Except you have more knowledge and will probably understand the beauty of the universe in a more meaningful way.
At 21, I did a 6 month sabbatical from college just to experiment with psychedelics.
Here's a few things I did while tripping:
- Took a hike
- Danced in nature at the sunset
- Listened to music (1st time listening Pink Floyd, the TDSOTM is a must!)
- Took a swim in my hometown cold river
- Experienced the "yin-yang" almost as an emotion-like feeling. Observing on top of my hometown mountains the greenery growing up on top of the charcoal again, after 2 years, when wildfires took 80% out. The moon and sun being present helped.
- Walked around and explored a new city with music on (I was with friends, they were sober)
- Painted and did drawings (I suck at it, it was incredible just seeing the ink flow out of the pen)
- I meditated
- I wrote about stuff
- I explored the online content people make (r/LSD has a list of links + a lot of people on these communities provide a lot of interesting content)
- felt like a Neanderthal eating a very juicy peach for the first time by doing exactly the same
- masturbation (as demisexual, I wish I could had met someone who I could have sex with)
- I played computer and felt like a god (usually I'm a noob, on that day I was truly overpowered)
- I went to the beach
- To the raves (I hated it!)
- I observed animals
- I climbed some trees
- I spent time with friends
So... ye. You can literally do anything and you'll have a radically different experience from what you would normally feel. Just seek out information first how to do it carefully. I would also not advise leaving to far from home until you understand the dosages and the impact it has on you.
I'd say just do them and come up with stuff to do. There are many of non-science forums on psychedelics, and you can quickly get the general idea how they can help you. But if you want to be sciency about it, read the aforementioned journals and do the "stuff" they describe yourself. Compared to experimental compounds, many are very easy (and often legal) to obtain. (but probably not legal to possess)
I just acquire mushrooms on my own and discuss the trips with my psychiatrist. He’s always quite enthusiastic about it and I’ve found them to be very helpful.
Beginning of my MD PhD program a guy who was big in that field and tried small scale trials gave a whole schpill about how big pharma was unfairly blocking this. Then I spent over an hour talking to him about it. This field has a huge challenge finding a consistent and reproducible outcome to aim for. When I pressed the guy he was pretty clear that there were participants in these studies that has pretty bad outcomes and would have been in bad shape if there wasnt a medical team on hand.
Im sure we will find a use for this someday but research has to do more than prove it is sometimes good for people. We need to know how to consistently identify those people who need it and the outcome desired.
> When I pressed the guy he was pretty clear that there were participants in these studies that has pretty bad outcomes and would have been in bad shape if there wasnt a medical team on hand
Are you aware of source-able examples of this?
I’ve been paying attention to the field for awhile, and I was under the impression that between pre-screening (people at risk for psychosis and a few other specific psychiatric issues should not participate), and proper set/setting, negative outcomes have been rare, and there is a high percentage of extremely positive outcomes.
TBH Id have to dig into my notes more than I care to now, but recall looking up his and his coauthors research at the time and the verbage was very similar to what you described. But that's kind of the point. Requiring a specific controlled setting with a medical team and someone to guide the individual through throughout the process is a lot of work to require for "good" outcomes.
The only time you can expect a drug will get approval without large reproduction of quantifiable outcomes is treating some aspect of a rare disease.
> Requiring a specific controlled setting with a medical team and someone to guide the individual through throughout the process is a lot of work to require for "good" outcomes.
Honestly this sounds like an incredibly small amount of work when considering the work involved in traditional therapy and/or psychiatric treatment, which plays out on a timescale of years if not an entire lifetime for some, and collectively requires a “medical team” numerous times.
And when the outcomes involve radical (lasting) improvement to everyday experience for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, I strongly question the urge to trivialize this with scare quotes about “good” experiences and their apparent cost.
> The only time you can expect a drug will get approval without large reproduction of quantifiable outcomes is treating some aspect of a rare disease
The good news is that there’s been quite a bit of progress, and growing interest in medical circles due to the positive outcomes. I’d strongly recommend looking at the latest studies/results; it sounds like you may be operating on some very dated information.
I apologize if what I shared sounded like a "scare quote". I was just responding to the question about whether this will be an available diagnosable drug anytime soon. It is really unlikely and there are some basic intuitive reasons why without going deep into any research.
Also, I didn't say I was unaware of anything in this field recently. I was replying to the specific individuals' research I mentioned earlier. I've seen plenty meta analyses and case studies but you need way more for this to be a viable medical prescription.
Finally, none of what I said is a statement on my opinion about whether this should be adopted or pursued more aggressively in medicine. You'd have a hard time finding anyone that wouldn't agree that prevention would be cheaper in the long run but that's not what you need to prove to a hospital system and the FDA. You need to have multiple phases of clinical trials and then convince a medical system that addition dedicated clinics are worth setting up for this.
I guess I just couldn't understand the position you were taking when framing this as a "lot of work". It sounded like you were dismissing it casually, and if that was a misread, I appreciate the clarification.
There's a certain common form of hostility that often emerges from some circles when this subject comes up, and I may have read into something that's not there.
Yes, this needs trials. Yes, that's what's in progress right now. And the results so far are worthy of attention.
Er no... LSD stored correctly can last an awfully long time. A lifetime supply for one person? Sure unless that person is Timothy Leary and his entourage!
The 300 tabs letter was scanned with lights and got caught.
The 50 tabs letter actually arrived but was obviously lost because customs began their investigation.
In Finland, LSD happens to be "an extremely dangerous" substance and 350 tabs gets "offensive / serious drug crime" (349 would not necessarily). I didn't know this; kind of funny.
However, this was all calculated in the sense that with all probability I will not go into prison nevertheless. Simply cannot try again any criminal activity in Finland / ever / for a long while.
LSD will last long time stored properly. Putting those small bags that packages use to remove moisture into airtight plastic bag and that into dark place where tempest doesn't vary lots.
I have thoughts on how it works, at a not physical realm.
What makes you flip bit to joyous? What chemical or physical or physiological change happens? Does it wear off?
I'm not depressed. I was at one point and found the solution. I have extensive joy. Yet I want to try because I think it does something that isn't the same bit flip you're experiencing.
At normal doses (<200ug for lsd) the experience is much milder than what reading stuff on the internet makes you think. It will not make you see dragons, nor permanently alter your brain in any significant way, if at all. It does wear off after 12 hours although sometimes there’s an “afterglow” (a very very mild sensation of being high) that can persist for few days.
What is does is exactly what the article explains - it unlocks the inner child in you. You will be curious about everything, everyday objects will suddenly become interesting as if you saw them for the first time. Your senses might become connected, some people “see” music with their eyes closed for example. It will make your mind go places that it normally rarely or never visits and you’ll be able to think about stuff from angles you didn’t pay attention to before.
It is a very powerful and useful tool if used correctly.
I usually listen to mystic constantly, except for a bathroom break. So bathroom breaks feel like I'm pausing the whole experience, the eerie silence where your brain is detecting audible patterns, it's like being in an elevator, before you get back to the scheduled experience. I like it.
I think, based upon the accounts of others - both what I have read, history, and people who have told me their stories, I think it bridges or removes the brain-to spiritual realm sensors. That is to say, an analogy - like suddenly being able to see infrared light. Something that does exist, but well within another realm of unseen reality, currently undetectable with existing senses. Now, hypothetically, IF there is a spiritual realm, hidden from our natural senses, if those senses were altered in a way, perhaps with natural chemicals found in nature, then suddenly those who were interacting with Angels, Demons, Monsters, Ghosts, etc. are not crazy or mentally ill but simply operating under enhanced or altered states of mind.
DISCLAIMER: all advice given here is given under the assumption that you did your research, and that you have good reasons why you're interested in psychedelics as a tool. They're a powerful tool, and powerful tools cut both ways. Turning into a new age woo head is a real risk, I've seen it happen to the staunchest of sceptics, no one is immune. Do your research, people, test your drugs, and be careful.
I think this research sort of puts the kibosh on microdosing as a paradigm, which has been my intuition all along. If you really want the potential from psychedelics, microdosing is sort of the wrong approach I always thought.
What you want to do instead is take them maybe once a year at most, though just one trip in a lifetime can be sufficient depending on your situation, then spend the following period of plasticity putting a lot of effort into changing your life the way you want to, establish habits, pick up new techniques, whatever it is you want to accomplish. You will learn faster, be more able to establish habits. And that learning is forever. You can reap the benefits for the rest of your life, completely sober.
I have done extensive self experimentation with microdosing of various psychedelics and the results were fairly clear to me. I felt smarter, and overall pretty great. I felt like I was making all these brilliant connections. But whenever there was an objective source of truth available, it became clear this was all an illusion, I was struggling to make connections that would otherwise be obvious to me, and that made it feel more significant than it was.
Chess, for instance, was one such source of truth. Played a couple long games against evenly matched opponent(rated and everything). Made a complete ass of myself. Played easily 3-400 elo points below my usual level. And all the while thinking I was playing brilliantly and calculating deep lines, I was really just imagining lines that never worked. My working memory was terrible. Time management completely off.
>Chess, for instance, was one such source of truth. Played a couple long games against evenly matched opponent(rated and everything). Made a complete ass of myself. Played easily 3-400 elo points below my usually level. And all the while thinking I was playing brilliantly and calculating deep lines, I was really just imagining lines that never worked. My working memory was terrible. Time management completely off.
As a supplemental anecdote, I won my first chess tournament at Manhattan Chess club in the early 1990s while dosed on a significant amount of mushrooms. Certainly the perception of time is an issue and I'm certain the results would have been different if the game had been shorter (as most games are these days), but in a 120 + 60 it wasn't an issue.
Interesting. What kind of state of mind are we talking about here? Threshold, above threshold, etc? I've never played a tournament game on a threshold or above dose before. I did play a casual game on a very large dose(probably 50 or 75mg) of 2c-b once, but I could barely discern the board at that point, and the results were... as expected.
This is my experience as well. Life changing if done on occasion (every few years in my experience). Some of the best days of my life (warning: every time I do them I start by seeing some seriously scary monsters before my positivity takes control).
Tried microdosing for a month once hoping it would make me smarter but seemed to have little effect.
> I felt smarter, and overall pretty great. I felt like I was making all these brilliant connections.
And here I thought the whole point of micro-dosing is the dose is too small to feelanything at all.
AIUI what you're calling microdosing is still in the realm of macrodosing, and no shit your working memory and time management was affected. What you were feeling were low-key hallucinations.
Sure, I tried doses that literally didn't do anything, but they literally didn't do anything. There was no magical functional in between land there. It was either nothing at all, or very slight lift in mood and significant side effects, especially as it went on for days.
Well, I guess what do you mean by feel? I've taken micro-dose amounts, 10-20ug, and have definitely realized I had taken something, but only if I really focused on it. It's certainly not the same as taking 50ug, but you can feel your body working a little differently. Maybe you have to get into amounts even smaller than that? Or maybe it's just placebo? I don't know, hard to say.
I do agree with the GP though, sometimes the thing you need is to just jump into a full on 100-150ug trip and hang out in it for the day. Let yourself regain some of that open state and change up the habitual patterns you may not know you're locked into over the course of the next days and weeks. I personally end up doing it about once a year, give or take, and it always ends up being a positive experience (if sometimes difficult).
> That is not the point of micro-dosing. What would be the purpose of taking it, if it does absolutely nothing at all?
This nonsense can be said of vitamins/supplements.
Microdosing psychedelics is basically treating them similarly AIUI. As with vitamins/supplements, just because you can't detect any acute effects doesn't mean they're not having any impact, especially long-term.
My own limited experience microdosing psilocybin for a couple weeks was that despite not feeling any acute effects at all, upon reflection post-facto my overall behavior was changed in interesting ways. Mostly related to priorities and paying attention to things I had long forgotten/ignored.
> This nonsense can be said of vitamins/supplements.
That is a silly comparison. Vitamins are essential to life and prevent disease. They are not psychoactive substances.
People microdose hallucinogens to "improve productivity, creativity and mood". That is an obvious detectable effect. These are potent psychoactive substances. Microdosing is comparable to caffeine and nicotine, not vitamins.
> My own limited experience microdosing psilocybin
Not a typical experience. Sounds like you nano-dosed on weak shrooms.
Research seems to prove that psychedelics can be a tool for opening up the so called critical periods. Critical periods are, in my understanding, the highly receptive periods of learning - brain wiring and rewiring.
Childhood is abundant in these periods, but they open up in adulthood naturally after trauma, e.g. stroke as high plasticity periods, which go away quickly and possibly are too short.
Totally subjective take: future result might be able to explain /why/ psychedelics have profound effect. Interestingly the life-changing traumatic experiences have similar effect, creating these critical periods - body responds to extreme conditions with risky high brain plasticity periods.
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is pretty accessible and although not scientifically rigorous, provides an ahem ergonomic framework for thinking about psychonautics (which I have, of course, never engaged in)
Her interview on the Psychoactice podcast was really good if you want more than this article delivers.
Primarily she’s getting closer to a more appropriate definition of what a psychedelic is, with the more common modern usage including ketamine and MDMA instead of just tryptamines. All of them seem to re-open a critical period of learning through different mechanisms.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] threadPsychadelics seem to have the ability to leave the user (after the actual 'trip' has worn off) in a state of heightened receptiveness for a long duration (length is different dependent on the drug, but counts weeks in some cases). This state is called a 'critical period' and is usually experienced in childhood.
This state might allow for easier digestion of new material, forming new habits or skills or allow the user to be taken advantage of (Charles Manson, and his LSD fueled cult, is mentioned in this regard).
But so far it's looking like this is further confirming what us psychonauts have always sort of understood. It's very encouraging to get rigorous science to back the intuition up though. It will obviously help guide future research in clinical applications.
Here's the actual most recent research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3
"Here we demonstrate in mice that the ability to reopen the social reward learning critical period is a shared property across psychedelic drugs."
> "Oxytocin and serotonin, she found, work together in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens to produce the good feelings that come from social interaction."
LSD and similar drugs can definitely improve one's 3D-visualization capabilities, but I think this requires putting in a fair amount of work on the concepts beforehand. It's reminiscent of the saying, 'chance favors the prepared mind', so if you spend say a month working extensively with 3D models of molecules, proteins, platonic solids and what not and then (under controlled conditions) ingest a psychedelic, a cognitive breakthrough is possible, such as gaining the ability to visualize what a 3D object looks like after successive x-, y-, z- axis rotations and so on, which is useful skill in many fields, from auto mechanic to protein chemist to structural architect.
Nice to see this subject finally being studied in a rigorous manner, at least.
Well, this supports my hypothesis on why talking to people was a really good coping mechanism for ADHD. As far as I can tell, oxytocin isn't dampened(?) like dopamine presumably is.
(I say presumably because of the specific symptoms I had and also the specific ways in which stimulants help with them, but I've never had my brain dissected or anything to confirm, seeing as I'm still alive and all.)
An adult who undergoes this kind of treatment to heal PTSD could, in the wrong hands, end up traumatized further. In the worst scenarios, patients could be vulnerable to abuse. Unscrupulous therapists or other predators could try to use psychedelics to manipulate others, Dölen says. This is more than paranoid speculation. Quite a few experts, Dölen included, think that Charles Manson’s ability to completely brainwash his followers relied on the high doses of LSD he regularly gave them prior to bombarding their minds with hate-filled lectures and murderous orders."
Except there's no science to back this up. All the scientific articles I've ever seen on the topic of gender and sexuality seem to indicate that the critical period for those attributes develop in the womb and not during childhood.
The most likely reason for such deviations from what conservatives would consider, "normal sexuality" is endocrine-distrupting pollution. The kind that causes amphibians to change their sex, for example.
Ironically, conservatives as a voting bloc will be the first to vote to reduce environmental protections and regulations attempting to reduce this (or any) pollution.
My personal belief is that the exposure/normalization is good because it helps people discover themselves. And I read that comment somewhat differently: exposure to these concepts might be controversial because parents have such different impressions of what is "right", so they might end up accidentally brainwashing their child. It already happens a lot, and people obviously don't want more of it.
We pretend like people don't get turned on by their own hand.
On one side, you see adults who believe that sexuality and cross-gender identification are immutable, or at least practically immutable. Their goal is to expose e.g. heterosexual kids to the idea that some of their peers will be different from them so that they aren't shocked and scandalized by it later, then lash out unfairly as a result of prejudice against the unknown.
On the other side, you see adults who equate deviations from acceptable expressions of sexuality and gender - you don't see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little girls - as being inherently obscene. They naturally want to protect children from what they see as obscene and abnormal.
They both believe that they have children's best interests at heart.
That said, based on all available data, it seems like sexuality and gender identification are mostly immutable and that truth will slowly win out in the end. For example, nearly every conservative has met a little boy who acted remarkably girlish since toddlerhood and grew up to be gay unsurprisingly. Seeing that process play out, then claiming that gayness is a social contagion requires cognitive dissonance.
It's a part of the process of social change.... The last huge wave of homophobia that had legal consequences was in the 1970's and was led by a group called "Save the Children" -- it's all just the same dynamics repeating, except today it's more-so around broader gender norms, as opposed to a narrow focus on "men sleep with women". This video does a great job of laying it out through that sort of lens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qUxa30SFA
This is absolutely not the case at the populist grassroots level. There are regular panics and outpourings of hatred for pride events, books mentioning homosexuality are outright banned in schools, gay teachers are targeted for harassment and fired. My state just passed a law banning drag shows, which have been a part of gay culture for decades.
Genuine question: do you live in a culturally conservative area? Do you have evangelical Christians in your social circles?
The level of homophobia I witnessed and experienced in the nineties was on another order than what exists today, there is absolutely no comparison (I’m not gay but was routinely called a fag even by strangers because I was a skinny kid with long hair and had gay friends). In the nineties I would read conservative magazines that had ads in them pushing conspiracy theories about how the NAZI leadership were all gay. DOMA was a huge issue that ate up a lot of national politics in 2004, even California voted against gay marriage in a referendum. In 2012 Obama was still compelled to campaign in defense of DOMA and was openly supportive of marriage only between men and women (though interestingly the earliest activists for marriage equality came from the centre-right (Sullivan and Rauchman)).
Now the nuttiest MAGA republicans all love George Santos, who was a literally drag queening in Brazil and Peter Thiel who got a massive cheer when he keynoted the 2016 convention and said “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.” Unthinkable even 4 years prior. One poll of gay men in 2020 shows 46% support for Trump. [0] On the more traditional Republican side of things (Dispatch conservatives and Reason Libertarians) it’s hard to find many living authors who are more valourized than Deirdre McClosky who has been trans for 30 years.
It’s possible that homophobia has increased a bit in the last few years amongst social conservatives, but it still isn’t close to anything like it was even a decade ago. So if it has increased, and if young people are reverting to viewing sex as a binary according to a recent Pew poll [1] the question is why. Partly it’s the weird corporate and state monomania around the topic. But more than that, as I stated above, it seems to me to be mixed with blowback to gender ideology which has been conflated with gay rights, even though it is a very different and contradictory thing with a whole separate host of questions around medical ethics and educating children that many don’t find to be consistent with the positive message that universalized gay rights - you’re fine the way you were born and you don’t need to change anything to be accepted.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-applauds-poll-...
[1] Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, even as growing share say gender is determined by sex at birth - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/america...
What you call "gender ideology" - a dogwhistle similar to Trans Identified Male and Trans Identified Female, acronyms specifically chosen to aggravate trans people by spelling out stereotypically female and male names - is, in some ways, everything that conservative gays and conservative straights disliked about stereotypical homosexuals distilled into its purest form. It violates the taboo of males being overly feminine (queens) and females being overly masculine (d*kes). It's also why drag queens, who are not transgender, are being swept up into the current moral panic.
It's strange to watch anti-trans activists make a big fuss about trans people changing their physical appearance, then go out and support things like drag bans which are also being used to prevent trans people from appearing in public [1]. Those bans are 100% about forcing people to wear certain clothing. I feel like legislating people's wardrobes according to the sex they were assigned at birth really gives away what's really going on here.
Even if all trans people stopped getting any hormones or surgeries tomorrow and even if they stopped using the pronouns that they feel fit them, and even if they stopped using the restrooms that fit them they would still be hated and attacked. They would be attacked for the same reason that feminine gay men and masculine gay women have always taken the brunt of homophobia.
Because what people hate is gender non-conformity. They want males to be reasonably masculine and wear clothing that is considered stereotypically male, and vice versa for females. The talk about scary medical procedures and men and women being erased and even fairness in sports is just a way of making that impulse sound reasonable and justified.
[0] https://daily.jstor.org/ernst-rohm-the-highest-ranking-gay-n...
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/library-cancels-trans-sp...
They perform no advocacy to speak of within the UK except for pursuing attack lines against trans people. They're based at 55 Tufton Street which just so happens to also be where a bunch of very curiously linked conservative think tanks promoting anti-climate change, anti-immigrant populist politics are centered. They're mysteriously mixed closely with American groups like the heritage foundation. Oddly they started getting cited a bunch by openly transphobic BBC journalists, ostensibly for "balance" when discussing the rights of trans people.
I cannot think of a more obvious example for astroturfing than this group. They have literally zero presence in real people's lives the way you'd expect a charity to, they instead pop up wherever anti-trans rhetoric appears online and in papers, providing a denigrating voice to whoever needs it. They provide no services and give no advice -- here's to hoping they lose their charitable status when the Good Law Project's appeal concludes later this year.
> It's office space that's situated conveniently close to Parliament, and isn't just used by conservative think tanks. For example, Feeding Britain (https://feedingbritain.org), a charity dedicated towards solving hunger in the UK, and headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is also based at this address.
This is an extremely selective statement, there are 9 businesses stationed at 55 Tufton street and every other bar Feeding Britain is controversial. Some have links to far right populist ventures, even the other charities like the Taxpayer's Alliance actually "[exploit] the taxpayer rather than protecting their interests as they claim to do"[1]
> As for the rest of your comment, please read: https://lgballiance.org.uk/lgb-alliance-who-what-why-when/
Rather than going to the LGB alliance's site to read who they say they are, I'd rather believe in their actions over their words.
* They have argued it is not homophobic to oppose same sex marriage
* They have argued against a ban on conversion therapy for trans people
* They have suggested the "+" on "LGBTQ+" promotes beastiality
* They specifically excluded the names of trans victims from their condolences list after the Colorado Springs night club shooting
Fifty LGBT organisations pushed back against the LGB alliance being given charitable status. Plenty more have branded them a hate group. I think these longer lasting perspectives are far more telling than the autobiography from a group who came into existence in 2019.
1: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/dec/29/taxpayers-alli...
You even illustrate this point yourself when you say:
> Very few conservatives in 2023 are riled up by homosexuality.
but also...
> the current trend of medicalizing gender as a form of gay conversion therapy
Kenneth Zucker's whole practice was geared, in fact, toward converting trans kids into gay kids. He says himself in his writing that being homosexual is preferable to being transsexual, since the latter requires medical intervention. The thing is, trans people and gay people have different needs and desires. They aren't the same group. So it's wrong to try to force gay kids to be trans or trans kids to be gay. But these days what you'll find is trans kids being pushed to be gay. A perfect inversion of the image you've painted.
The reason I "conflate" transsexuality (the word has two s's, also nobody uses it anymore, you should just say 'being transgender') with being gay is because the very same arguments and tactics used against gay people in the 80's - it's a mental illness, a social contagion, they're grooming kids, etc... - is being used again against trans people today. There was even a bathroom and women's sports panic in the 80's around lesbians in women's sports "preying" on straight girls.
Trans people had been considered merely a part of the gay community, along with other gender non-conforming people who may today identify as non-binary, until relatively recently. The fight for gay rights benefitted trans people, but we're at a point now where they have their own struggles, like the struggle for medical treatment.
It's a struggle that's been fought since the 70's when Janice Raymond wrote "The Transsexual Empire" and worked with the Reagan administration to make it more difficult for trans people to get medical treatment. Nothing about it is new, except for the alliance between conservative Christians and secular anti-trans activists - an unholy union if I've ever seen one.
It is very hard to see it that way, gender dysphoria is not, and does not particularly correlate with sexual attraction to the gender of your AGAB; exclusive attraction to the gender opposite gender identity is less common than than both exclusive attraction to the same gender and bisexuality among trans people in America. If it were predominantly “gay conversion therapy”, you'd expect it to be predominantly people who had same gender attraction based on AGAB transitioning so that their target gender would result in that being opposite gender attraction. But the evidence doesn't support that.
It's a fantasy constructed by anti-trans, anti-gay forces to try to turn the successful movement against conversion therapy into an asset for them in dividing their natural opponents, but you have to be pretty ignorant to fall for it.
You must have one heck of a filter bubble of what you're seeing in the world if you're not seeing conservatives complain about child beauty pageants. There was a massive conservative backlash to a Netflix documentary about child beauty pageants and the conservative internet meme landscape is full of content against "groomers" and anything that involves sexuality and children.
for a good illustration of this, examine the politics of people who organize, attend, and participate in actual underage beauty pageants in the US -- the last US president, for example
it's not surprising, because the point of beauty pageants is to reinforce the conservative stereotype that a woman's job is to stand there and look pretty
you'll also note that, as mentioned above, conservatives don't apply the term to breastaurants when children are present there -- I didn't see a response to that, and it bears repeating
These latest "topics in the culture wars" are simply that, the latest usable tools that can be used, along with exaggerating and flat-out lying about the topics, to maximize the outrage of their voter base to drive turnout.
Meanwhile, it also helps the authoritarian causes to maximize the demonization of these same "other" minority groups, and trans groups are both easy and fresh targets. (Nevermind the facts: there are essentially zero cases of people in drag being any kind of threat to children, while there are literally thousands of cases of religious 'leaders' from the very same sects, sexually abusing children, with new cases every day.)
Stop trying to normalize marginalizing people.
Fear of a concerted effort to remove rights to everything from free speech, to reading books, to healthcare, to voting and actively destroying the independence of institutions whose independence is required to maintain democracy is exactly the same as fabricated fear ginned up with lies about minorities such as trans, Jews, and blacks.
If you want to play at the pot-kettle game level, I'd point out that your statement is mere spouting of the standard line of the deluded herd. Not suitable for this forum. Please bring some facts next time.
There's a lot of variables there. I can only speak to my experience. I started seeing psychedelics getting talked about in veterans circles and was curious about them. My trauma stems from many sources, but what's common is a lost of innate trust, and the end result is that trust is easier to tear down quickly than build up. Not great for healthy relationships, communication, and a number of life's necessities. I decided to wait on trying them and went about doing things like CBT to change my behavior and focus on getting out of this anxiety riddled loop I was in.
Fast forward a decade and I was really at a point where I just needed help letting go of my trauma. I'd dealt with it, there was nothing more to be done, yet still the door would not shut. If you're at a place where the metaphorical door won't shut, psychedelics can be a helpful tool. You're really going to already need to be in a place where you can be mindful (present) and focus on what you want to change. After you've tripped you really need to unpack where your mind went and why; that's to say separate the garbage from the work to be done.
Not everyone should do psychedelics just because they're seeking healing. They can provide that, but you need to be in the right place and willing to do the work. Being triggered in the middle of a trip is a good way to really re-traumatize yourself in the way that reading about trauma identical to yours can be traumatizing.
I dream of a science based medical system in the future.
Modern science has put all those dumb ideas to rest!
Now we know that the true model is: `health = fn(bigPharmaMed1, bigPharmaMed2, bigPharmaMed3)`.
At 21, I did a 6 month sabbatical from college just to experiment with psychedelics.
Here's a few things I did while tripping: - Took a hike - Danced in nature at the sunset - Listened to music (1st time listening Pink Floyd, the TDSOTM is a must!) - Took a swim in my hometown cold river - Experienced the "yin-yang" almost as an emotion-like feeling. Observing on top of my hometown mountains the greenery growing up on top of the charcoal again, after 2 years, when wildfires took 80% out. The moon and sun being present helped. - Walked around and explored a new city with music on (I was with friends, they were sober) - Painted and did drawings (I suck at it, it was incredible just seeing the ink flow out of the pen) - I meditated - I wrote about stuff - I explored the online content people make (r/LSD has a list of links + a lot of people on these communities provide a lot of interesting content) - felt like a Neanderthal eating a very juicy peach for the first time by doing exactly the same - masturbation (as demisexual, I wish I could had met someone who I could have sex with) - I played computer and felt like a god (usually I'm a noob, on that day I was truly overpowered) - I went to the beach - To the raves (I hated it!) - I observed animals - I climbed some trees - I spent time with friends
So... ye. You can literally do anything and you'll have a radically different experience from what you would normally feel. Just seek out information first how to do it carefully. I would also not advise leaving to far from home until you understand the dosages and the impact it has on you.
https://www.howtousepsychedelics.com/
Im sure we will find a use for this someday but research has to do more than prove it is sometimes good for people. We need to know how to consistently identify those people who need it and the outcome desired.
Are you aware of source-able examples of this?
I’ve been paying attention to the field for awhile, and I was under the impression that between pre-screening (people at risk for psychosis and a few other specific psychiatric issues should not participate), and proper set/setting, negative outcomes have been rare, and there is a high percentage of extremely positive outcomes.
The only time you can expect a drug will get approval without large reproduction of quantifiable outcomes is treating some aspect of a rare disease.
Honestly this sounds like an incredibly small amount of work when considering the work involved in traditional therapy and/or psychiatric treatment, which plays out on a timescale of years if not an entire lifetime for some, and collectively requires a “medical team” numerous times.
And when the outcomes involve radical (lasting) improvement to everyday experience for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, I strongly question the urge to trivialize this with scare quotes about “good” experiences and their apparent cost.
> The only time you can expect a drug will get approval without large reproduction of quantifiable outcomes is treating some aspect of a rare disease
The good news is that there’s been quite a bit of progress, and growing interest in medical circles due to the positive outcomes. I’d strongly recommend looking at the latest studies/results; it sounds like you may be operating on some very dated information.
Also, I didn't say I was unaware of anything in this field recently. I was replying to the specific individuals' research I mentioned earlier. I've seen plenty meta analyses and case studies but you need way more for this to be a viable medical prescription.
Finally, none of what I said is a statement on my opinion about whether this should be adopted or pursued more aggressively in medicine. You'd have a hard time finding anyone that wouldn't agree that prevention would be cheaper in the long run but that's not what you need to prove to a hospital system and the FDA. You need to have multiple phases of clinical trials and then convince a medical system that addition dedicated clinics are worth setting up for this.
There's a certain common form of hostility that often emerges from some circles when this subject comes up, and I may have read into something that's not there.
Yes, this needs trials. Yes, that's what's in progress right now. And the results so far are worthy of attention.
Exactly like happened with ketamine as esketamine.
I actually ordered a lifetime supply of acid and got into big trouble from that.
Really good stuff, makes me joyous.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/1960s-rock-music-s...
The 300 tabs letter was scanned with lights and got caught.
The 50 tabs letter actually arrived but was obviously lost because customs began their investigation.
In Finland, LSD happens to be "an extremely dangerous" substance and 350 tabs gets "offensive / serious drug crime" (349 would not necessarily). I didn't know this; kind of funny.
However, this was all calculated in the sense that with all probability I will not go into prison nevertheless. Simply cannot try again any criminal activity in Finland / ever / for a long while.
LSD will last long time stored properly. Putting those small bags that packages use to remove moisture into airtight plastic bag and that into dark place where tempest doesn't vary lots.
I have thoughts on how it works, at a not physical realm.
What makes you flip bit to joyous? What chemical or physical or physiological change happens? Does it wear off?
I'm not depressed. I was at one point and found the solution. I have extensive joy. Yet I want to try because I think it does something that isn't the same bit flip you're experiencing.
What is does is exactly what the article explains - it unlocks the inner child in you. You will be curious about everything, everyday objects will suddenly become interesting as if you saw them for the first time. Your senses might become connected, some people “see” music with their eyes closed for example. It will make your mind go places that it normally rarely or never visits and you’ll be able to think about stuff from angles you didn’t pay attention to before.
It is a very powerful and useful tool if used correctly.
Also going to toilet feels strange.
Can you please expand on that?
I think, based upon the accounts of others - both what I have read, history, and people who have told me their stories, I think it bridges or removes the brain-to spiritual realm sensors. That is to say, an analogy - like suddenly being able to see infrared light. Something that does exist, but well within another realm of unseen reality, currently undetectable with existing senses. Now, hypothetically, IF there is a spiritual realm, hidden from our natural senses, if those senses were altered in a way, perhaps with natural chemicals found in nature, then suddenly those who were interacting with Angels, Demons, Monsters, Ghosts, etc. are not crazy or mentally ill but simply operating under enhanced or altered states of mind.
Joe/Suzanne describe their trips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn_bfhvoX2c
How can two people experience the exact same "grid effect" when on a trip when what they see is entirely in their mind?
I think this research sort of puts the kibosh on microdosing as a paradigm, which has been my intuition all along. If you really want the potential from psychedelics, microdosing is sort of the wrong approach I always thought.
What you want to do instead is take them maybe once a year at most, though just one trip in a lifetime can be sufficient depending on your situation, then spend the following period of plasticity putting a lot of effort into changing your life the way you want to, establish habits, pick up new techniques, whatever it is you want to accomplish. You will learn faster, be more able to establish habits. And that learning is forever. You can reap the benefits for the rest of your life, completely sober.
I have done extensive self experimentation with microdosing of various psychedelics and the results were fairly clear to me. I felt smarter, and overall pretty great. I felt like I was making all these brilliant connections. But whenever there was an objective source of truth available, it became clear this was all an illusion, I was struggling to make connections that would otherwise be obvious to me, and that made it feel more significant than it was.
Chess, for instance, was one such source of truth. Played a couple long games against evenly matched opponent(rated and everything). Made a complete ass of myself. Played easily 3-400 elo points below my usual level. And all the while thinking I was playing brilliantly and calculating deep lines, I was really just imagining lines that never worked. My working memory was terrible. Time management completely off.
As a supplemental anecdote, I won my first chess tournament at Manhattan Chess club in the early 1990s while dosed on a significant amount of mushrooms. Certainly the perception of time is an issue and I'm certain the results would have been different if the game had been shorter (as most games are these days), but in a 120 + 60 it wasn't an issue.
Tried microdosing for a month once hoping it would make me smarter but seemed to have little effect.
And here I thought the whole point of micro-dosing is the dose is too small to feel anything at all.
AIUI what you're calling microdosing is still in the realm of macrodosing, and no shit your working memory and time management was affected. What you were feeling were low-key hallucinations.
I do agree with the GP though, sometimes the thing you need is to just jump into a full on 100-150ug trip and hang out in it for the day. Let yourself regain some of that open state and change up the habitual patterns you may not know you're locked into over the course of the next days and weeks. I personally end up doing it about once a year, give or take, and it always ends up being a positive experience (if sometimes difficult).
That is not the point of micro-dosing. What would be the purpose of taking it, if it does absolutely nothing at all?
The idea is that you are taking a very small dose, to cause a mild effect, and not so much that you trip out and start hallucinating.
This nonsense can be said of vitamins/supplements.
Microdosing psychedelics is basically treating them similarly AIUI. As with vitamins/supplements, just because you can't detect any acute effects doesn't mean they're not having any impact, especially long-term.
My own limited experience microdosing psilocybin for a couple weeks was that despite not feeling any acute effects at all, upon reflection post-facto my overall behavior was changed in interesting ways. Mostly related to priorities and paying attention to things I had long forgotten/ignored.
That is a silly comparison. Vitamins are essential to life and prevent disease. They are not psychoactive substances.
People microdose hallucinogens to "improve productivity, creativity and mood". That is an obvious detectable effect. These are potent psychoactive substances. Microdosing is comparable to caffeine and nicotine, not vitamins.
> My own limited experience microdosing psilocybin
Not a typical experience. Sounds like you nano-dosed on weak shrooms.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12...
If you can tell a difference when you take it then it's a small dose, not a microdose.
Objectively scientifically measurably false. Typical microdoses have a noticeable effect.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12...
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/microdosing-lsd
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/adb.13143
Primarily she’s getting closer to a more appropriate definition of what a psychedelic is, with the more common modern usage including ketamine and MDMA instead of just tryptamines. All of them seem to re-open a critical period of learning through different mechanisms.