
Reversing Mental Age with Psychedelics - apsec112
https://mad.science.blog/2020/08/16/the-phoenix-effect-reversing-mental-age-with-psychedelics/
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misanthropian00
All I get from the article is that they gave some people psilocybin (20mg/kg)
and then did some fMRIs. Lovely but I don't see any evidence for reversing
mental age here.

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firepoet
The article seems to suggest that the study hasn’t actually been executed yet.
This seems to be about hypotheses and study design.

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ganzuul
I really hate that I get dumber and dumber with age and that the laws of my
country do not let me stop this slow mental dulling. It feels like a group of
people physically attacking and overpowering me and I am confused by why I
should follow these obviously evil laws.

I like the way this article is written, with all the references plainly
accessible.

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agumonkey
Are you really dumber or just slower ?

I'm not 20yo quick but with all my newfound limits I don't feel dumber..
actually somehow more efficient (forced economies)

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ganzuul
You're right, slower is the right word. I'm very accurate and precise but feel
like I am embarrassingly slow. Recollection in particular feels slower, and I
don't know if that is because I have much more knowledge to draw upon or
because of aging.

What is more definite is that the 'aha-moments' are much less rewarding and
because of that I am less attentive in my intellectual pursuits. I have more
effective learning strategies but less interest in applying them.

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agumonkey
I had a funny experience recently. Gave math lesson to a 15yo. I could sense
the higher thoughts frequency in his words and ideas. The kid couldn't think
deep, got confused regularly on simple matter, but I could feel how vibrant
his spirit was compared to mine. Strange feeling :)

I too feel that intellectual challenges are less rewarding. But average life
amongst peers is so dull, I'd rather keep doing that rather than stop. Also I
tend to blend this with more altruistic pragmatic goals. Getting old makes
your ego less important and so this is a workable compromise.

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nostrebored
FMRI metastudies: for when you really hate reproducibility

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ferros
I always wondered why kids could learn a handful of languages and adults
struggle to learn anything past one.

Language is an interesting one. Maybe it’s my personal bias but it seems a lot
easier to learn other things than language as an adult. Instruments, skills,
etc.

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Enginerrrd
I tried to learn spanish as a kid in around middle school. It was an
extracurricular class and it was the first thing I'd really ever failed at.

Now at 30ish, I find I can learn languages MUCH easier. I speak fluent french
and am reasonably conversant in Spanish. (I can read it pretty well though.)

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zensavona
Any tips on language learning? I have struggled with and ultimately failed at
learning two languages (German and Thai).

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dalbasal
Emphasise speaking.

We tend to focus on reading, oral understanding & writing. Those fit easily
into " _sit down and study for 45m_ " format. Speaking doesn't, and can feel
uncomfortable or contrived in classroom settings. One of the big reasons
"immersion" often leads to fast breakthroughs is because it comes with a lot
of natural speaking. That's often the bottleneck.

You don't stop and think of the correct grammar, words or whatnot when
speaking. You just try to make yourself understood as best as you can, with
whatever language skills you have. Even 200 words is something. Engaging that
intuitive improvisation can be really helpful.

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bluejay2
I have a different take. I would say don't worry about speaking at all, at
least not in the first several months. It will come when you are ready. Focus
on understanding messages from comprehensible input (be it from books, movies,
whatever). Speaking is hard, and the anxiety caused by forced speaking (for
example, the type you find in a lot of high-school language classes) can be a
barrier towards language acquisition. In a nutshell, I subscribe to the Input
Hypothesis that Stephen Krashen writes a lot about on his site sdkrashen.com.
(Under that hypothesis, the gains from immersion, when they arise, are because
of the higher amount of interesting, comprehensible input that is directed at
the learner, rather than an increase in the learner's output)

Yes, at some point you'll need to work on pronunciation but that is something
different than the type of extemporaneous speaking we are discussing here.

But this probably only goes to show what another commenter pointed out, which
is that there is a lot of conflicting advice out there.

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zipperhead
We're seeing a lot of articles starting to praise the use of psychedelics.
This seems a bit dangerous - these are serious drugs that can potentially mess
you up - I'm not saying that they shouldn't be used, but it would be nice if
interested people (people who are going to try them anyway) could go somewhere
and have some medical/therapeutic guidance through their experience. It would
be so much safer.

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LocalH
I don’t feel that it should be required to have “authoritative” guidance in
order to have psychedelic experiences. I feel that’s better served by a more
shamanistic role, as medical settings are the _last_ place I’d ever want to
trip. People need to be taught about tolerance, and about the paramount
important of mindset (and to a slightly lesser extent setting) when it comes
to psychedelics.

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GuB-42
It looks like one of these "let's show how cool psychedelics are" study, or
study proposal.

I have nothing against psychedelics, and I am sure that they helped many
people, but I am also sure they wrecked many others. They are very unstable
drugs, and unless we find some way to tame them, I don't expect any kind of
progress in therapeutic use of psychedelics.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the proposed study will do anything to help
here. Basically, they are going to give adults a shroom trip, have them watch
a cartoon, and scan their brain using a fMRI machine to see if their brain
look more like infants or more like sober adults doing the same thing.

It is just a way to confirm if what everyone who at some point has been in
contact with psychedelics noticed, that is that tripping makes you feel like a
child, also shows on fMRI scans. But the thing is: so what if it does? How
will it help turn a notoriously unstable drug into something that a doctor can
prescribe? Not only that but fMRI scans are notoriously hard to interpret.
There is a famous igNobel study that analyzed the thoughts of a dead salmon.

I am not saying I am not interested in the potential results of such a study,
but if the goal is to find medical use for psychedelics (and therefore get
them out of Schedule I), I don't know how it will help.

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curation
"Grow Up" and that millennial nugget adulting take on whole new inflections.

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richrichardsson
"Some people who've taken a lot of psychedelics tend to all too easily believe
in conspiracy theories and to reject mainstream science. Thus I know too many
people who believe in chemtrails, 9/11 as a conspiracy, are anti-vaccination,
anti-fluoridation, etc." [1]

Coincedence that some people who took a lot of psychedelics end up as gullible
as children?

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5r2wn7/im_filmmaker_c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5r2wn7/im_filmmaker_cosmo_feilding_mellen_i_made_the/dd45sxm/)

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gverrilla
I for the contrary can say otherwise: most of people I've met who's taken a
lot of beer and religion tend to believe more in conspiracy theories and
reject science - psychedelic users are the contrary.

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richrichardsson
I think the key words in the quote from Scully are "some people" and "a lot of
psychedelics".

Of course it's also purely anecdotal, but within the Psychedelic Trance scene
I see far more people than I am comfortable with who took a _lot_ of acid and
end up deep in the rabbit hole of conspiracy nonsense.

