
The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy - Hooke
https://psypressuk.com/2020/01/31/psychedelic-therapy-oram/
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BatteryMountain
I've used dmt, mescaline, psilocybin, thc/cbd and impepho, all in plant form
and all in nature/relaxed environments (not trance parties, or for giggles
with friends) and some alone at home. As much as I want to tell everyone do it
all at least once or to fix x problem (depression?), I don't recommend it and
don't talk too much about it with others. The main reason is that they are
very unpredictable.

You can use the exact same dose a month apart and will have wildly different
reactions to it (both during the experience and afterwards (add digestive
system weirdness to the list)); Nevermind trying to predict outcomes between
different people, even if the dose is the same. And since the experience and
some of the effects are based on your current mental landscape, it tends to
bring more of what you are to the front (on top of your physical surroundings,
sounds, smells). This can good or bad, and sometimes both. Point being that
you can permanently alter your mind and body in unpredictable ways.

I greatly value my experiences with them but I don't touch them any more
because I'm truly afraid of what they are capable of. I don't think I've been
damaged by it in the long term. My own experience of course don't invalidate
other's experiences or that it has helped people. I just feel that it
dangerous in the same way that jamming wet fingers into a broken plugged-in
toaster is dangerous. You might get lucky a few times but at some point the
toaster will teach you it's ways, and you may never get to enjoy toast again.
Well you might, but it might come in through a tube while you are drooling at
clay in a mental hospital.

One shaman told me to never seek these things out. Wait for it to call you.
Learn your lesson and move on. He also said not to push others into it. This
is YOUR journey, their time will come sooner or later (meaning different
lives, if you are into that). He also said not to try and force the
substances/plants/medicines to give you specific knowledge/teachings/truths -
they will show you what you need to see.

Sorry if I seem conflicted - I both want everyone to do it (hoping it would
make the world better via empathy) and nobody to do it (because even a single
person suffering a bad trip is not worth the cost (it really is hell
x1000000)).

Hope it helps the discussion.

~~~
_sillymarketing
That is essentially the main study of the today’s time: set & setting.

We don’t outright ban these like the way our parents did, but we don’t know
how to consistently trigger good outcomes for a variety of personalities. The
only way to resolve that is by testing and controlling for set and setting.

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wqsz7xn
Am I the only one that is extremely wary of psychoactive substances being used
as magic bullet treatment method? You tend not to hear about the people that
have had a permanent increase of anxiety and long lasting schizophrenia from
usage. This drug does not work well for everyone and you only find out once
you have taken it. A bad trip can ruin some people permanently.

~~~
kinghtown
A great part of the horror of a bad trip is how regular people treat someone
who is experiencing one, or has been damaged by one. I would rank interactions
with the police as a far greater danger than like an out of body experience
into god knows what.

I have a buddy who did like 150 hits of LSD 20 years ago and there is a great
sadness in him and how he can’t really share that experience with most people.
People, who’ve never played around with LSD tend to become super condescending
with him like he’s damaged.

The thing is, these studies or motions to incorporate psychedelics into
therapy are never advocating for super human doses. I can definitely see the
value in micro to moderate doses coupled with qualified therapy for non
schizophrenic consenting adults. A full on like wizard trial into the
nightmare heart of psycho hell with heroic doses of whatever is not what these
guys are arguing for.

~~~
OneGuy123
Nothing bad will happened when interacting with police if you do as they say.

Look at all the police videos on LiveLeak etc...you will see a common thread
in all arrests gone wrong: the suspect didn't do as he was told despite
repeated warnings.

~~~
chownie
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver#Shoo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver#Shooting)

Easily debunked. The police are not absolute, they are human beings. Some of
them are not suitable for the position of power and use it to abuse others.

~~~
OneGuy123
Debunking it with a rare example?

Are you truly generelizing to all arrests based on a few shitshows?

You know how many police officers get killed by trying to arrest people
peacefully?

~~~
IgorPartola
I can’t tell if your comments stem from ignorance or willfully ignoring facts
but in either case kindly stop and listen because what you are saying is
incorrect and wrong.

Do YOU know how many police officers get killed trying to make peaceful
arrests? Do YOU know how many black people get killed by the police during
peaceful arrests? Because I guarantee you that you do not. I am too tired of
people like you commenting like this so I’m not going to put in the work of
looking things up for you. Please educate yourself on this matter before
speaking about it.

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Noos
I want people who think this is good to do a mental experiment.

Forget that this particular drug is LSD. I want you to imagine you are reading
an article about a previously unknown drug made by a new company that is
touted to have great efficacy in treating mental illness.

However, you soon learn that the side effect of this drug is serious
hallucinations every time you take it, often serious enough that people
recommend that you only take it in the presence of a licensed professional
able to deal with the fallout of a hallucinatory episode going bad.

Not only this, there is the potential of long lasting and fundamental
personality change from it. Not just getting you back to a functional state,
but changing who you are as a person. To the point where recreational users
take this drug to find quasi-mystical experiences and make themselves a better
person.

Would you guys really be gung ho about this drug if it were not called LSD and
was made by Pfizer in a lab?

I'd honestly be scared enough to only even consider it as a last resort to
cases where it was impossible to function otherwise. But LSD gets touted way
too much as a miracle drug here, even though if any other drug had these side
effects, people would try everything but it first.

~~~
wayneftw
Before I did LSD I had heard about the hallucinations, the potential for
personality alteration and the possibility of long lasting effects.

Those are the exact reasons I dove headfirst into trying it a few times over a
summer!

If I had heard that it was made by some pharmaceutical company I probably
would have stayed far away from it. None of my friends and family where
talking about pharmaceutical drugs and even at a young age I already knew that
corporate culture did not value my best interests.

~~~
Nursie
> If I had heard that it was made by some pharmaceutical company

I mean, it was, it's just they had to stop and it gets made by underground
chemists these days. But it absolutely was the product of a pharmaceutical
company.

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jeffreyrogers
Given the number of people who did these or similar drugs in the 60s and 70s
and the absolute lack of evidence that these people's mental health is any
better than their peers who did not do these drugs, it seems like any
therapeutic role for these drugs is likely to be incremental, rather than
revolutionary.

Anecdotally, the people I know who talk the most about how helpful
psychedelics have been for them are less well adjusted than the average person
I know.

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LatteLazy
I believe these drugs are meant to be taken a few times, over a period of a
few months, with professional oversight. I mention this because many
commenters here seem to think you would take (say) LSD daily for the rest of
your life. Or that the fact people have taken it in the past recreationally
(unsupervised) and not had great improvements in mental health mean these
drugs are overrated!?

~~~
BatteryMountain
YES! Most of them should definitely not be daily.

My own rules:

marijuana: not more than once per month (I don't use it as a medicine, so once
a month is fine for me)

mescaline: not more than once per month (low dose, 3 to 6 teaspoons of dried
san pedro powder on a saturday)

psilocybin: not more than once per month (low dose below 3 grams)

psilocybin: not more than once every 6 months (high dose above 3 grams)

dmt: not more than once every 6 months (not smoke, must be in ritual setting
with a shaman person)

impepho: not more than once a month (typically once every 3 months because of
the smell)

caffeine: not more than once per week

nicotine/alcohol: don't use.

All of them are better when in nature and away from work/stress. Do not try to
use them to get away from stress or to make you feel better. Feel better
first, then use them. I also want to say, don't cross-use them: if you've
taken one of the above, wait the same amount of time to pass before using
something with similar time: meaning if you use mescaline this month, wait a
month before you try marijuana; if you used high dose psilocybin recently,
wait 6 months before touching dmt. Reasoning: some of them take time and their
effect last longer than the day or two after dosing. Sometimes it's a week,
sometimes it's 6 months. I would also not recommend combining them in the same
setting or using them when you are on chronic medications (from a Dr) due to
unpredictable interactions that may or may not be safe.

So the idea of using LSD daily like people are popping normal pills.. probably
not a good idea at all.

