Psychedelics as healing agents

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Magic Mushrooms May Have Long-Lasting Positive Effects On Personality

People given psilocybin, the compound in “magic mushrooms” that causes hallucinations and feelings of transcendence, demonstrated a more “open” personality after their experience, an effect that persisted for at least 14 months. Openness is a psychological term referring to an appreciation for new experiences. People who are more open tend to have broad imaginations and value emotion, art and curiosity.

This personality warp is unusual, said study researcher Katherine MacLean, because personality rarely changes much after the age of 25 or 30. (In fact, one recent study found that by first grade our personalities are set pretty much for life.)

“This is one of the first studies to show that you actually can change adult personality,” said MacLean, a postdoctoral researcher at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The root of the change seems to be not the drug itself, MacLean told LiveScience, but the mystical experiences that psilocybin often triggers. These profound, transcendent feelings feel no less real to people for being chemically induced, she said. [Read: How Do Hallucinogens Work?]

“Many years later, people are saying it was one of the most profound experiences of their life,” MacLean said. “If you think about it in that context, it’s not that surprising that it might be permanent.”


Tripping for science

Research on hallucinogens is usually associated with 1960s counterculture figures such as Ken Kesey and his LSD-fueled “Acid Test” parties. But within the last decade, a somber, step-by-step approach to studying the effect of hallucinogens has emerged, MacLean said. Experiments are tightly controlled — it’s not easy to get permission to give volunteers illegal drugs — but they are revealing that substances associated more with Grateful Dead concerts than the psychiatrist’s office may have medical uses after all.

In Massachusetts, the nonprofit research institute MAPS, or Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, is investigating the possibility of using the hallucinogen MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Both LSD and psilocybin are under investigation for their use in treating anxiety; MacLean’s postdoctoral adviser at Johns Hopkins, Ronald Griffiths, is leading a study to find out if psilocybin might ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients. Another of Griffiths’ studies focuses on using psilocybin to break nicotine addiction.

In the current study, MacLean and her colleagues looked at personality questionnaires from 51 people who had taken psilocybin as part of two separate Johns Hopkins studies. The volunteers were all new to hallucinogenic drugs.

Each person attended between two and five eight-hour drug sessions in which they would sit blindfolded on a couch listening to music — a way to encourage introspection. During one of the sessions, the volunteers received a moderate-to-high dose of psilocybin, but neither they nor the experimenters knew whether they would be swallowing a psilocybin pill or a placebo on any given day.

In one experiment, participants came into the laboratory twice. On one visit they were given the real deal and another time they got Ritalin, which mimics the side effects of psilocybin without the hallucinations.

In another experiment, over a course of five sessions, participants received either a placebo or one of varying doses of the drug. For the purposes of this study, the researchers focused on the high-dose session, which was the same dose given during the first experiment.

Before the drug sessions, the participants filled out the personality questionnaire that measured openness. They also filled out the same questionnaires a few weeks later and then again about 14 months after their high hallucinogenic dose.

Transcendence in a pill
The results, published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, revealed that while other aspects of personality stayed the same, openness increased after a psilocybin experience. The effect was especially persistent for those who reported a “mystical” experience with their dose. These mystical experiences were marked by a sense of profound connectedness, along with feelings of joy, reverence and peace, MacLean said. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]

“It’s probably not just psilocybin that causes changes like this, but more these kinds of profound life-changing experiences, whatever flavor they take,” she said. “For a lot of people, psilocybin allows them to transcend their ways of thinking about the world.”

About 30 of the 51 volunteers had a mystical experience, MacLean said. The openness changes in these participants were larger than those changes typically seen over decades of life experience in adults.
But this is a strictly do-not-try-this-at-home experiment, MacLean cautioned. The participants in the study were under close supervision during their session with the drug. Psychological support and preparation helped keep bad trips to a minimum, but many participants still reported fear, anxiety and distress after taking psilocybin.

“I could see how in an unsupervised setting, if that sort of fear or anxiety set in, the classic bad trip, it could be pretty dangerous,” MacLean said, adding that the risk of unsupervised usage outweighs any potential reward. Psilocybin is classified as a Schedule I drug in the U.S., meaning the government considers it to have a high potential for abuse and no legitimate medical purpose. [Read: The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

It’s not yet clear whether unsupervised usage would even result in the same changes in openness as seen in the study, MacLean said. The study group was small, and was already more religious and more open than the general population.

MacLean is now researching the effects of combining psilocybin with meditation. There could be therapeutic benefits to boosting openness, she said, including helping people break out of negative thought patterns. The studies might also illuminate the anecdotal connection between hallucinogens and art, she said: “On the most speculative side, this suggests that there might be an application of psilocybin for creativity or more intellectual outcomes that we really haven’t explored at all.”

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More:

http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/05/19/441 ... ric-resea/

Silver bullets indeed.

[Soiree]

My brother used to get really upset all the time, he is a paraplegic living with FG-syndrome.
When he would get really mad he would bite his hands and sometimes would gnaw on them so bad, bit them so hard that he would force huge gashes and holes in the skin on the top and sides of both of his hands, this can happen in a matter of minutes. It took a number of trials and errors with various of medications that my liberal family's conventional antidotes to a problem when the answer was very obvious, as we live in Humboldt County I just told them to quit with the medication and start giving him Ganja tincture in the day and feed him some mild Ganja food at night. He's a little guy, very small, I'd guess we only weighs like 90 lbs. but we've regulating very carefully and the results have been amazing, he's been in a great mood all the time, very happy and excited and his hands are completely healed, he basically never bites anymore, if he does he only bites his toys.

Proof! psych-meds are a band-aid once adjusted a dependency is created, doctors always looking to over medicate, and the all natural cure all of Ganja is the only medicine any of us ever really need, it's uses are endless, it's criminal that such an amazing powerful substance is even prohibited anywhere ever for any reason. There is no reason for the government to interfere with the practices of it's people, they need us more than we need them, they need to tax us, criminalize us, find ways to enslave minorities, the prison population has increased more than 800% since 1970, it's an industry, the prison industrial complex and it's glorying judicial practices turns activism into terrorism, medicine into criminal intent, if my brother is a criminal and anyone is to say that this incredible substance that is magical and healing, cures many problems and solves many problems, no one has the authority to control and regulate a natural botanical gift from our goddess mother nature.

[nobody]

Here is an interesting thing for you guys...

Remember how I said I was a firm believer in the effects of LSD...
After a trip I would feel great up to almost a month after a trip...

Well - I have been going through some health stuff for awhile now...
and we've finally made some headway as far as treatment....
and guess what....

Eletriptan - a synthetic ergot...

.....has helped with the migraines sooooo much.

Now we just have to figure out what's causing it...
I know it's gonna be hormones.

I have super izan ovaries.

I'm supposed to have like - 36 babies by now....


HAHA!! My brain has got the chicken head parts in check boy!!!

I'm like - FUCK YOU BABIES!!!
with my head under a pillow because light is piercing my eyeballs
making me wanna puke...

<iframe src="/forum/video.php?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPaKNafdJ18" frameborder="0" style="overflow:hidden; height:auto; max-width:540px"></iframe>

[nowaysj]

Any alterations to your consciousness with Eletriptan?

[hifi]

psychedelics as anything suck

[titchbit]

Any alterations to your consciousness with Eletriptan?

Don't think so, could be a side effect but really doubt it

[shmurkle]

amber lyons story is amazing.

[lovelydivot]

Any alterations to your consciousness with Eletriptan?

I've only taken the prescribed amount...
- but they give massive warnings about not taking more than 2 in a period of 24 hours.
….but they don't say why - they just say absolutely do not do it.

- they come packaged with just 3 doses…so I am suspicious.

I have had some extra vivid dreams with it.

- but it looks like my problem may be related to a severe vitamin D deficiency.

I told you I was a shitty vegetarian.
I was a breadatarian.


I'm still going through it - trying to manage whatever is going on…
I'm on 50,000 units of D right now - and I haven't had a migraine so….

[titchbit]

Any alterations to your consciousness with Eletriptan?

I've only taken the prescribed amount...
- but they give massive warnings about not taking more than 2 in a period of 24 hours.
….but they don't say why - they just say absolutely do not do it.

probably because too much of it can cause severe hypertension, tachycardia, and heart failure.

[nowaysj]

- but it looks like my problem may be related to a severe vitamin D deficiency.

can u not chill in the sun?

[lovelydivot]

…it does function as a vasoconstrictor…


chilling in the sun….funny

I'm not much of a sun basker…

[_ronzlo_]

Scientists Studied What Psychedelics Do to the Brain, and It's Not What You've Been Told