
Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity - lainon
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)30755-1
======
tranchms
I’m a huge proponent of safe psychedelic use, specifically LSD.

I was massively depressed and suicidal growing up (I had family problems, and
two of my best friends killed them selves at 13 and 17).

I dropped out of high school.

I experimented with LSD and mushrooms around 17/18 years old.

And while I didn’t realize it then, my life massively changed for the better.
Maybe I grew up. Maybe I took responsibility for my life. Or maybe... there
was a synergistic effect that accompanied my psychedelic use. My religious
family thinks it was all their prayer and god’s work... because it’s a
miracle.

As I got older, the more I believe that it had a profound impact on my mind,
and my ability to perceive the world and my sense of self differently, in an
empowering way.

I now am an evangelist for psychedelic use. I share it with whomever I feel
would benefit, educating them on the research, on the negative stigmas, and
emphasizing how necessary it is to respect the substance and approach it with
care and good intent.

I ended up attended a top 12 university. I worked hard.

Most of my friends at that university experimented with LSD. None of them are
crazy. They all are doing amazing things. They’re all deep and insightful.

Psychedelics have gotten such a terrible reputation.

I believe it is immensely helpful for anxiety and depression.

I believe it needs to be adopted as a therapeutic alternative to current
psychiatric therapies which are toxic and destructive and deadening by
comparison. (I was on countless drugs growing up, dozens, prescribed by
psychiatrists... they did nothing. Just made me more dead inside.)

I also believe psychedelics open the mind in ways that only radical life
experiences can.

I think this mind expansion can be useful for learning, creating, and
perceiving new ways of looking at the world.

~~~
pdgonzalez872
So how do I get to experiment with this in a controlled and legal way these
days?

~~~
tranchms
You don’t.

But if you have the drive, and are willing to take a small risk, you venture
into the dark web and locate one of the handful of chemists/dealers who
provide the world with its supply and buy in bulk.

Or you find a friend who has already done this work.

~~~
clu1590
To bad all the good Darknets were taken down and replaced with Honeypots.

~~~
andai
Source?

------
tuxxy
Anecdotal info warning:

A few years ago, I thought I was completely incapable of feeling happiness. I
hadn't experienced it for a long time and was completely numb. I was
chronically depressed for 4-6 years.

I took shrooms from a friend at a security conference completely unaware of
what I was getting into. For the first time in _years_, I felt truly happy. I
have no idea, physiologically or psychologically, what happened, but when I
woke up the next morning my entire world changed -- I didn't feel numb
anymore.

That day, my chronic depression ended. I have been depression free for a few
years now. We _need_ more research for this.

~~~
andai
I had a friend who was suicidal, and mushrooms were the only thing that helped
him. He'd feel better for a week or two.

~~~
innocentoldguy
I don't have any anecdotal stories to share. I just like shrooms.

------
mettamage
Counterpoint for shrooms

1\. I took magic mushrooms (well truffles, Amsterdam, sold in smartshops, i.e.
legal) and I felt a bit uncomfortable in my body and I felt like a kid.

2\. I took magic truffles again (again Amsterdam) and I felt a lot
uncomfortable in my body and was contemplating suicide. Fortunately I had on
gray brain cell left that said "you can kill yourself, but only if you agree
on it when you're sober and it's one week later." I locked myself in a
bathroom with no windows. Yes, I could hurt myself in the bathroom, but I was
fortunately to dumb to know how to do that. When the effect started cooling
down it was a mix between a really bad trip and a really profound, meaningful
yet really painful trip.

When I came out of the trip and felt sober I got a lot of data to analyze
about myself and that definitely helped me. Yet, god forbid if I didn't have
that 1 gray brain cell that realized that I was on truffles and therefore not
in my right mind. Needlessly to say, when I was sober I decided to live
because life is one interesting big trip anyway :D

One thing that I am realizing more and more: _I really like myself sober_.
When I am sober I am capable of keeping my emotions in check. It's easier to
love myself and all those things.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the insights.

~~~
moyya
I can echo this sentiment, as a normally soft-spoken guy who was arrested
while completely out of his mind on psilocybin. My perception of reality was
utterly shattered; I thought I had died and that my mind was transported into
a realm of eternal torture. I'll never forget the dread I experienced while
being forced to the asphalt and handcuffed by police officers on the side of
the road. They took me to a hospital where I believed the medical staff were
preparing to physically mutilate me (keep in mind, I was handcuffed the entire
time...I felt helpless). When a nurse asked my name and address, I just broke
down and started bawling. Apparently they gave me a sedative, and I woke up
later to find my family sitting around me crying.

Psychedelics have an amazing propensity for good, but they can also destroy
you. Tread carefully.

~~~
juskrey
Sounds like it was a fake LSD, more like dxm or something

~~~
CynicalDio
It is entirely possible that this was real LSD. To believe that the "real"
stuff can't cause these kinds of psychotic episodes is absolutely naive. It is
also very unlikely DXM would ever be passed off as LSD, the dosage range is in
the 200-800mg area and as such is IMPOSSIBLE to fit on any standard blotter.
DXM is also a disassociative drug primarily effecting the NMDA receptor sites
in the brain whose effects are markedly different from the sertonergic-centric
tryptamine effect produced by LSD and related substances.

------
cageface
I am overall pro psychedelics but I have seen them harm people first hand as
well. They should be treated with a lot of caution and respect. I totally
understand the urge to evangelise them but keep in mind that you're taking on
a lot of responsibility when you encourage people to experiment with their
brain chemistry.

~~~
tranchms
I hear ya. I’ve yet to see it negatively effect anyone other than a bad trip,
which, seen in the right light, can be a therapeutic experience.

But I know they need to be respected and understood.

I also realize that some people with a family history of mental disorders like
schizophrenia, would be better off staying away.

Like, some people have used psychedelics, and they go crazy. But how many of
those people were crazy to begin with? How many would end up like that if they
never tried psychedelics to begin with?

I tend to think that the fear is over dramatized.

But I do emphasize respecting its use in a profound way.

It changes you.

The upside is that real LSD is so rare, the chances of people finding it are
slim to non. It’s distributed by so few people.

~~~
cageface
I watched a good friend freak out in front of me on a bad trip. Almost thirty
years later he's still not the same and needs antipsychotic medication to
function. This kind of thing isn't common but it can definitely happen.

~~~
rufugee
It's entirely possible that LSD uncovered or accentuated an underlying flaw in
your friend's psyche...

~~~
psychedictic
This is the common response from proponents of LSD. To them, it's never the
LSD, and instead the adverse reaction must be because the person had a mind
that was predisposed to some sort of mental illness.

Even if it's true that someone has some kind of latent / dormant condition
that is ultimately triggered by the LSD, then the act of taking the LSD itself
_was_ the catalyst, and the person would have been far better off not ever
having taken the drug.

The drug is illegal, and the argument growing up was that the "government was
suppressing free thought" or whatever nonsense was being pushed, but the
reality is that such a drug is dangerous and absolutely does hurt people.
Whether connected to a predisposition of mental illness or not, it's not a
hard connection and people should be extra cautious when considering whether
to engage in such behavior.

~~~
sev
Care should be taken, like with any substance we ingest. However, I disagree
with your premise.

We do not know if LSD was in fact the catalyst. We don’t know if the people
who got ruined after taking a single tab of LSD actually took LSD or some
research chemical (which are quite commonly sold off as LSD).

~~~
yeahforsureman
Some research psychedelics are more dangerous physically, and certainly less
researched, but in terms of psychological effects, all psychedelics are
generally pretty similar. It's silly to assume LSD is somehow significantly
less likely to cause psychological trouble.

------
acd
Psychedelics such as LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline has the ability to treat
long term depression. They seem to allow you to step out of the box in other
words get you a truly new perspective on the world. From what I can understand
these drugs alter the brain area responsible for emotions the amygdala. I
would go as far as to say people with long term depression needs reprogramming
of their brain and one way to accomplish that is Psychedelics. This is not
something one should self administer when depressed. For those who tried above
substances did it change your brain for the better? Also I belive Psychedelic
drugs could help people with autism spectrum for some. People with autism also
be helped with a different perspective on the world.

Psilocybin and Depression
[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03380442)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-
drugs-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/psychedelic-drugs-brain-
repair-lsd-depression-anxiety-lsd-dmt-amphetamines-ketamine-a8395511.html)

~~~
dgzl
> For those who tried above substances did it change your brain for the
> better?

That's a tough question to answer, but I can share my story and maybe you can
glean from it. The truth is, drugs can do incredible things for the mind, body
and soul, but the person must be able to handle the intensity, and their own
craving.

My upbringing was pretty rough: parents divorced when I was young and I was
raised by my southern-Christian grandparents since I was five. My parents were
very poor and my grandparents had already raised two kids on low income. I was
fairly depressed growing up for many reasons related to my natural life. I'm
first generation in my family to graduate University, let alone with a STEM
degree, and my career provides a better salary than anyone in my family has
ever had. It was a pleasant surprise for my family, and you'll understand
after the next couple of paragraphs.

I had stated smoking pot in middle School, alcohol came next, then ecstacy,
codeine, mushrooms, and Acid, all before I graduated high school. College had
shown me MDMA, DMT, cocaine, various opiates, and some research chemicals my
friend kept around. Recently (late twenties) I had experimented with ketamine
for the first time.

In high school, when some friends and I started getting into ecstacy, it
didn't take long before some of them became habitual users. At one point my
friends would be taking it at school. I took this as a cautionary red flag,
and reigned in my ecstasy use at the time. Sure enough, those friends became
addicted to the sensations, and took life paths that would lead them to
misery. This was a vital learning moment in my life.

Around that same time in high school, I had arranged with other friends to
take mushrooms together at their house. I ended up taking about 7 grams, which
is -plenty-, and about twice as much as the most I've ever taken. The effects
were good when they were good, but really bad when they were bad. Most of the
time I couldn't arrange proper sentences, regular body functions seemed like
foreign operations within myself, and everything I looked at had a
Kaleidoscope-esque effect on it. At one point I summersaulted into my friends
wall on the way to the bathroom, where I proceeded to fail to remember how
bathrooms work, and pee all over myself. This experience has since kept me
distant from mushrooms.

Right into college, I had joined a political activist group and started making
friends. While driving together to an overnight rally at the neighbor
University, some friends in the group revealed to me that they regularly
consume large amounts of psilocybin mushrooms. I didn't end up getting to know
them well, but they seemed like nice and well-intended hippy-types attending
college.

A month ago, I went to an epic-level music festival where the only thing more
prolific than music and water were drugs. While walking to find a restroom at
sunrise, I came across a guy hanging in his campsite mumbling to himself. We
started some conversion and he came back to our camp to hang. Later he
revealed to us that he was coming down off a twenty strip (20 hits of LSD).
That guy made for some interesting conversation.

For me, more than any other type of drug I've tried, psychedelics do best at
opening my mind. Other drugs have their purposes, but from these drugs, the
effects are truly interesting. I feel like I'm able break down mental
structures that exist in my mind, and recreate them in different ways, either
for a real goal (relief from depression), or just for fun (hallucination,
creative outlet). Once I found my footing with psychedelics, my experience
became centered around allowing weird and non-conventional thoughts to take
over my mind, until I I'm rethinking how everything workes and why things
operate in today's life the way they do, and how with some wild creatively, we
could have an entirely different reality that's more beneficial to us all.
That, and dancing.

------
everdev
For those that haven't tried psychedelics but are curious about them in a
personal growth / non-recreational way, on the Joe Rogan podcast I heard a
good metaphor along these lines:

Imagine your brain as a snowy hill. Each decision you make is like sledding
down the hill, causing a slight indentation in the snow. The more times you
make a decision, the deeper the groove, the faster you make the decision and
the harder it is to try something different and escape the groove.
Psychedelics is like fresh powder on the hill won't the grooves away so you
can try new ways of thinking / new routes down the hill.

~~~
scarecrowbob
It's not a bad analogy.

I will add this: the shape of the hill stays the same, and mostly that fresh
powder will melt back into those old ruts... the changes that these
experiences bring seem, to me, more about knowing the ruts are there then they
are about changing things in our lives.

The change comes from the awareness of what can be done, because formerly
"natural" things that are "just what people do" start to seem like artificial,
learned behaviors. That's a powerful thing to grok, and easier to comprehend
at the level of our nervous system with these substances.

I haven't found these drugs to be super "fun" outside of the non-recreational
ways of doing things, but the older I get the more I enjoy things that most
folks find exceptionally boring. But I do find them very useful.

For people who people worry about the long term effects of these things; I
feel like for most healthy adults, if they "start small" the actual long-
lasting effects are pretty minor.

Here's an idea to consider for curious folks: if one or two psychedelic
experiences could fundamentally alter your views on your life, you probably
ought to consider the deep things in your life more often.

~~~
cryoshon
yeah, one of the biggest misconceptions that i had was that it would be "fun"
to try psychedelics. it wasn't fun, and it wasn't not-fun. it was different,
and it was a learning experience.

the long lasting effects were negligible for me. the biggest change was that i
realized i might be "on the spectrum" but it isn't as though it was a life-
changing realization.

i agree regarding your final point. i do think that psychedelics are more
"helpful" for people who are extremely extraverted or otherwise reluctant to
reflect on themselves.

~~~
sev
Any time I am given the opportunity to learn something new unexpectedly, I
have fun.

~~~
scarecrowbob
There is a certain amount of enjoyment from learning.

I wish that I had not had to see out how badly my drinking impacted my
marriage with my second wife when she unexpectedly left me, but it was a thing
that I needed to learn.

So I take your point, and I am glad to learn things. In general I find
learning an enjoyable experience. There are a certain amount of life-altering,
important facts about ourselves that are painful to encounter in any
situation.

------
openfuture
For those who want to walk this road I'll share some insights that I think
would have helped me progress faster.

You will need to face every thought that you normally would censor due to
shame, those include (usually in this order): sexual thoughts, psychotic
thoughts and religious thoughts. Then you will reach true vulnerability and
loneliness (which is the prerequisite for truly connecting with others).

Any 'spiritual path' will take you through the same process but psychadelics
do it faster meaning there is less control (i.e. less feeling of safety)
however this can be a good thing since we often use the control afforded
through for example yoga to avoid facing some flaw in our methodology.

As always I recommend patience as the principal approach and an absolute
belief that the true nature of the world is 'good'.

The key insight is that everything is about relaxing and trusting the wisdom
that lives deep down, it doesn't matter what you are doing, if you approach it
in this way with balance and compassion as goals then you can feel better.

~~~
abrkn
...and have a trip sitter.

------
anythingnonidin
There are some people in this thread asking for advice on using psychedelics.

If you're in this thread and likely to use psychedelics, please do your
research first.

My recommendation is to at least thoroughly read the following resources
before beginning:

\- [https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-shrooms/](https://tripsafe.org/how-to-
take-shrooms/) (I started this website, it has quite a few users, and it's
important that people who are likely to use psychedelics are aware of this
info for everyone's benefit.)

\- Then, next perhaps the book "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide"

------
vitro
I cannot find the author of the quote, nor the quote itself, but it was
something like this: "You should take psychedelics and then work hard to
experience the same, but without psychedelics itself".

I remember one guy posting about his experience with psychedelics and then
with long period of yoga and meditation. Interesting thing was, that he
described something similar. On psychedelics it was as if you would take a jet
plane and got somewhere really fast. Yoga and meditation, on the other hand,
take you same place but you have a time to look around during the process. It
takes a lot of time, though, but also is safer.

Interesting may be combining meditation and yoga with microdosing, which
should still keep you on the safe side.

~~~
jeffwass
My friend in college gave a similar analogy as the quote in the first
paragraph.

He said psychadelics can open the door but then you go thru the door. You
don’t just keep re-opening the door.

------
noddy1
I had an acid trip with an agonizing comedown that made me really rethink my
life and priorities. As a result of that day I began the path to go to medical
school, despite everyone including my parents telling me it was unrealistic.
I'm just finishing specialist training in anaesthesiology and my life is great
and I pretty much thank LSD for the whole thing.

------
all_usernames
Surprised there's been hardly any mention of Michael Pollan's new book. He's
the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and most recently
How to Change Your Mind -- mostly about the recent advances in the study and
therapeutic uses of psychedelics. There's also an accessible chapter or two on
the latest neurophysiology findings on the psychedelic or mystical state of
consciousness.

The book goes into some detail about a few FDA-approved clinical trials for
MDMA and LSD-assisted psychotherapy underway, some approaching Stage 3 --
these are mainly the result of over 15 years of work by MAPS[1] -- if Stage 2
results are anywhere near as successful as the small Stage 1 trials, we're
pretty likely to see legal and widespread adoption for the treatment of PTSD,
end-of-life anxiety, and/or depression.

[1] [http://www.maps.org/](http://www.maps.org/)

------
p1mrx
I'd like to see research comparing the effectiveness of cannabis in small
doses, against other psychedelics. If your goal is to benefit the largest
number of people, then it makes sense to start with a substance that a
significant fraction of the population can access without advanced social
skills and risk tolerance.

------
hammock
> Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity

Glad to see public research is coming out on this, and it's not a brand new
insight. Pretty sure that's why the CIA were using them in MK ULTRA mind-
control experiments.

------
yeukhon
Drug makers do not understand what it is like to be psychotic and mentally
ill. They need to experience them to truly understand how to develop drugs,
because most of the drugs are ineffective and side effects are way too strong.
John Nash has given up on his medication and instead rationalized his
disability for the rest of his life, after his final discharge in 1970.

It's unfortunate many people do not understand mental illness at all, and they
think therapy and drugs can be cure people. They cannot. Mental illnesses are
treatable, but they cannot be cured.

Okay, I am done. I hate this world. Fuck these medications.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dip6Q6AX4AAfq8y.jpg)

Look at it. Ain't working. Ain't working, people. They ain't working. Ain't
nobody gonna understand. I read enough papers to fully understand no drugs can
help.

------
red75prime
I would prefer something which promotes neural plasticity without showy side
effects.

------
EGreg
[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-
tr...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/for-babies-life-may-be-a-
trip-1531932587)

------
mnm1
Current antidepressant drugs are garbage by comparison but we're stuck with
them for profit and stupidity reasons. In the meantime millions who could
potentially be helped suffer and die. It's truly hard to justify the current
situation on this research and the government's position in letting people
suffer and die from such a horrific condition as depression when there might
be a solution right before our eyes. Future generations will not look kindly
on our stupid, barbaric, hateful society for this.

~~~
kolinko
If you have a neurotypical person, therapy, or psychedelics can bring a
lasting result.

But for a certain subset of population, with messed up serotonin pathways,
antidepressants are _the_ cure. Just like for a diabetic an insulin shot is.

~~~
adrice727
I read "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari[1] a couple weeks ago. He spends much
of the first section on the research and history of antidepressants. One
particularly interesting thing is that drugs that _decrease_ serotonin levels
are just as effective as those that increase serotonin. The same goes for
drugs that alter levels of dopamine. It seems that a great majority of the
effectiveness of antidepressants comes from the placebo effect, and the
remainder is somewhat of a mystery. Also, doesn't cure imply something that is
permanent and not just a temporary measure?

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-
connectio...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connections-
johann-hari-review)

~~~
llamaz
I don't know much about human biology, but if the relationship between
dopamine/seratonin and depression/anxiety is more non-linear than linear, then
the fact that both increasing and decreasing dopamine/seratonin is effective
can make perfect sense. This sort of relationship - where small changes shift
an equllibrium and result in a qualitative change - are common in nature and a
forteriori human physiology.

------
allthenews
I am excited to see more positive coverage of psychedelics. But every time
threads like these pop up, there are people who claim to know people who came
away from a trip with some kind of psychosis/anxiety disorder. I haven't
reviewed the literature in some years; can anyone recommend any modern sources
which document rates of poor outcomes post trip? I feel like, while odds are
in one's favor, these drugs can be a coin toss, I'd like a better feel for the
odds.

