
Sub-Acute Effects of Psilocybin on Empathy, Creative Thinking - pps
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02791072.2019.1580804
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SolaceQuantum
I don't really know if the effects can be attributed to psilocybin here. It
describes general well-being improvements after a social event that was also a
retreat focused on a mutually enjoyable activity which was psilocybin
exposure. I'm curious if this happens also in writer's retreats, furry or
anime conventions, group hiking, or meditation retreats.

The lack of even an attempt at control makes it a very weak paper overall and
I wouldn't attribute it to support anything.

~~~
jrowley
The tricky thing about psychedelics is that they have been described as
delivering the "placebo effect on steroids". That is to say, the set and
setting prior to ingestion directly effects outcomes, so if you want to
maximize your chance of seeing some consistent results, you would want to
prime people with certain expectations and knowledge prior to them taking the
psychedelic. If you were to control it against an active placebo (people often
use an amphetamine), the participants would be able to deduce they aren't
actually taking a psychedelic.

~~~
Uberphallus
I like to call it psilo-cebo for mushrooms, or psyche-cebo in general.

The approach should be to use different types of psychoactive drugs to
multiple pseudocontrol groups. Have a control group have placebo, then another
LSD, another Ketamine, another a synthetic cannabinoid, another mushrooms.

That way even if the effects are genuine of psilocybin it will pop from the
rest in the results, if is in psychedelics in general LSD will pop as well, if
it's anything "mind exploring" Ketamine will pop too, if it's just getting
high what makes things better, the cannabinoid will join into the results.

And obviously this has to be done on people without drug experience, because
the effects are rather easy to tell apart by drug users.

~~~
sheana_ahlqvist
"obviously this has to be done on people without drug experience, because the
effects are rather easy to tell apart by drug users"

Interestingly, the subjective experience of having a "high" seems to be
somewhat learned through prior experiences. Testing on people without drug
experience may not be the accurate test one might want and assume.

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Cynddl
> Due to the non-random sample, as well as the lack of placebo control, it
> could be argued that sub-acute enhancements are due to uncontrolled factors
> such as psychological expectations, or the environment in which the drug is
> taken.

Indeed. The setting of the retreat (“After ingestion, participants were
instructed to stay on the premises, and were able to do what they wanted, as
long as they did not disturb other participants. Facilitators provided music,
tools to draw and/or write, and food. In the evening, all participants and
facilitators came back together as a group.”) might have had a significant
effect on the results. These should be, at least, compared to a similar
retreat where no psilocybin is ingested.

Otherwise, the effects could come solely from the environment, e.g., a calm
and relaxing retreat far from a busy life.

~~~
DFHippie
If depression were so easy to treat it would hardly qualify as a mental
illness. I think the purpose of the pleasant, relaxed setting was more to
ensure the psilocybin had positive rather than negative effects on the
participants. It's a precaution, like how in radiation therapy you point the
radiation at the tumor rather than adjacent vital organs.

~~~
marviel
Sure, it makes sense --- but I think what your parent is trying to say is that
a control would be fairly easy to implement --- just put some other people on
the retreat and don't let them take anything.

~~~
adrianN
Let them take a placebo.

~~~
marviel
Yeah that would certainly be a better approach.

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etxm
The one time I took psilocybin, my buddy and I sub-acutely plastered ourselves
in apple sauce and paper towels so we’d look like mummies, then we watched
ninja turtles for about four hours.

Two thumbs up, would use again.

~~~
newnewpdro
The only movie I've watched while tripping is eXistenZ, and that was an
indescribable experience. I can imagine four hours of anthropomorphized
turtles doing karate was also a good time, though probably less horrifying
than eXistenZ.

Out of curiosity, how old were you when this happened?

~~~
etxm
21, so 17 years ago. We git them the Florida way: Walk around a cow pasture
and fill a grocery bag with mushrooms.

Yum... the smell of fresh mushrooms.

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MobileVet
Prior research at Johns Hopkins has shown significant improvements in
depression months after ingestion, so this would track with that.

Sad that less than half of the study population returned for the 7 day
evaluation point.

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virtualwhys
> The truffle sample (15 grams; Psilocybe Hollandia) contained 1.9 mg of
> psilocybin and 10.5 mg of psilocin. Participants ingested an average (SD)
> 34.2 (8.9) grams of truffles throughout the day.

Is that equivalent to 15 grams of dried mushrooms? If so that is a serious
dose (over 1/2 an ounce!), there would be breakthroughs and breakdowns
happening left and right given that amount.

Seems unlikely that participants (particularly first timers) would ingest such
a large quantity, even when spread out over a number of hours.

Perhaps if one only drank the tea the effects wouldn't be as extreme as both
drinking the tea and eating the remnants, but still, I'd have some concerns if
the facilitator presented 15 grams to me and said something along the lines
of, "now don't worry, just drink the tea and eat the rest, everything's going
to be just fine [after you get through the maelstrom phase]" :)

~~~
avenius
Truffles are less potent than mushrooms, so you need to more or less double
the dosage. I would think that the 15 grams of truffles then would be
equivalent to about 7-8 grams of dried mushrooms. Since it was ingested
throughout the day, I would assume that's dosages equivalent to 1-3 grams
spread out through the day.

~~~
perfmode
I’ve found it to be closer to 10:1.

15g truffles felt like 1.5g.

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xutopia
I'd be concerned about the drop out rate. They started with 55 the day of, 50
the next morning and 22 just after.

That said I am a proponent of psilocybin research and believe there are some
merits to it. I just think this is an odd part of the study.

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str33t_punk
I microdosed shrooms once (.1g) and it was distracting. I guess my creativity
was 'up' but that was because I kept getting distracted by cool lights and
random thoughts.

It did motivate me to workout but mushrooms always make me want to exercise
for some reason

~~~
samirm
are you sure it was a microdose?

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appsonify
I tried Psilocybin on two different occasions and two very different trips.
The first being pleasant, the second being my last.

The first time I took it, I was outside. The very first thing I notice is just
how vivid the green leaves swaying in the wind were. How calm, serene,
peaceful. Then I started seeing the walls, "breathe". I've never been able to
feel such inner peace before. In this moment, I realized, _I have so much
potential_. We all do, yet it's our own doubts, and the internalized opinion
of others or vanity metrics hindered our progress. I've found "spiritualism".
I started playing Gran Turismo and realized how effortless I've been able to
drive around the Nordschliefe. Normally I'd crash but I was putting no effort
yet I was playing at a level that surpassed my normal everyday skill. Then I
started joining meetups. Like groups that I never thought I'd join. I was
suddenly interested in women's rights, I got interested in Hinduism.

The next day, the inner peace continued to linger. However, after a few
months, I was back to my old self.

So this econd time, I upped the dose (bad idea). This time I stayed in my room
(another bad idea). Instead of the inner peace, I was in a state of panic.
There were some scary visuals like the Eye of Providence, I could feel the
presence of some extra-terrestrial intelligence, looking at me, judging me
with those unchanging Eye on the US dollar bill.

I headed downstairs and the visuals just got stranger. I close my eyes and see
complex geometrics, and reopen them to see math formulas _everywhere_. I was
getting even more panicky and I head to lie down.

Then I experienced what is called "Ego Death". I felt like I was dead. No
identity, no awareness. It was awful, I longed for anything, any sort of order
and structure I had in my normal reality. I was thinking "yup I fucked up. I
poisoned myself. good god."

During the ego death, the only certainty I felt was Math. Math is the language
of both this universe and the fabric of our universe. We are made out of math.
The gut feelings we get, the emotions, thoughts, they were ultimately
mathematical manifestations. This was the intuition I was feeling, a spiritual
plane where Everything is Everything while being Nothing. The ubiquity and the
ephemeral nature of both our life, and the universe.

There is a positive story out of this. I came out of the ego death, and I was
sooooo thankful that there was something in this reality instead of nothing.
The trip was not over, and I started seeing this bright pulsating object that
looked like a symbol of sorts....kinda like a lightning symbol appear right
above between the eye brows of the people I looked at!

I am not a religious person and have not come into contact with any Hinduism
materials but when I looked up the Hindu symbol for the Third Eye, I almost
fell out of my chair-it was the same. I never even heard or seen the Third eye
before, and I was just reading other people's trips and there were people who
saw the exact same thing....

After the trip was over, the next morning, I woke feeling light. It felt like
I sat in a sauna but instead of sweating out chemical toxins, my spirit felt
like it was cleansed. I did make some positive life changes....but ended up
right back where I was.

It seems like you need to keep taking psilocybin to see the benefits but after
that trip, I'd rather not open that door anymore. It was frightening more than
it was awakening but perhaps because the possibility that our material reality
that the Western civilization claims is be-all and end-all is not only
incorrect but immature-civilizations and cultures that existed longer all have
gone through such stages, and eventually gave way to spirituality at some
point.

~~~
pmarreck
The third-eye thing is very very interesting

I'm also not a religious person but I once had a very odd feeling after a
guided meditation (I completely lost ALL fear of death for a couple days...
including the baseline fear of death, which we all actually have and which I
had never noticed before, since it's always there). It is good to be
skeptical, but I think it's also good to acknowledge when something truly
subjectively weird occurs.

~~~
tasty_freeze
> including the baseline fear of death, which we all actually have

That is a strong claim.

I have no fear of death, but a fear of what often immediately precedes death,
namely decrepitude and illness. I'm in my mid 50s and so I watched the
generation of my grandparents go through it, and then my parents generation.
The only positive I can find in that is that if any of them feared death, the
illness had made them prefer it over the constant sickness.

~~~
pmarreck
Yeah, that's a reasonable fear to have IMHO. I turn 47 in a few weeks and it's
on my mind, my mom has dementia and is on her way out

