
LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy - boh
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/lsd-reconsidered-for-therapy.html
======
debt
I gotta say if you're an expert at something or at least consider yourself an
expert at something: take LSD.

LSD really dislodges how you view the world; it cleans out your mental system,
like moving a fridge and cleaning all the crap that's been swept under there
over the years.

I would love if some of these prominent intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or any
of the nobel prize winners did LSD. I saw a really intense movie a few days
before I did mushrooms and it totally changed how I viewed the world during my
mushroom trip.

I can only imagine if you've been sitting on some idea(especially a really big
intense one like how humans acquire language(!)) for decades how LSD would
completely alter your viewpoint.

~~~
sar9
I wish more experienced DMT. It's like the ultimate Oculus Rift. The
resolution, colors and sense of intelligence communicating with you is beyond
anything any other psychedelic can produce. It is literally like opening a
door to another dimension, one full of overwhelming love. Maybe it's just a
biological trick but it is one of the most fascinating and unbelievable things
in nature.

Not everyone should try it but I hope one day Sam Harris eventually does. His
insight on it would be riveting.

~~~
junto
I know what you mean. DMT is something I recommend everyone and nobody should
try.

The experience was extremely weird. It was like the filters that my brain uses
so that it can adequately process the 'live stream' from all my senses got
switched off. I was subjected to to the 'live stream' in its full bit rate. I
revelled in it for a while but eventually the wave was so huge that my brain
shut down. No ego whilst I was in there surrounded by millions of video images
almost to fast to process (memories maybe).

I have to admit though that it wasn't a pleasant experience, but for me it was
an experience I wouldn't change.

~~~
rplnt
> DMT is something I recommend everyone and nobody should try.

This fits Salvia as well. Salvia Divinorum, for those who don't know, is
another psychedelic. This time it's naturally occurring (the Salvinorin A is
strongest natural hallucinogen) and doesn't smell like burnt rubber with ramen
noodles. As with everything else (except programming), study before use.

~~~
sar9
Salvia often has an extremely negative feeling associated with it. The initial
smoking of DMT can be uncomfortable but with a proper dosage it typically
causes a very positive feeling but not in the sense of any stimulant. It feels
natural, loving and you can forget you have a body.

Salvia can have horrendous negative feelings. A smaller dosage of DMT can
produce slight anxiety. Of course, these are anecdotal experiences but I'd
warn against using salvia.

I would caution against Ayahuasca too as it's intense, last hours and can be
very negative unlike smoking DMT.

------
snake_plissken
I've always found it incredibly amazing that psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin,
MDMA, DMT etc) were outlawed in responses to forms of massive, peaceful
"movements" in which taking psychedelics was something the members of the
movement were known to do; that legislators and policy makers were so afraid
of the affects these chemicals would have on society that they had to put the
serious force of the law behind getting them out of the hands and the minds of
the people.

~~~
Nursie
I think it was just a convenient way to continue to suppress the
counterculture while also looking tough and moral, because we all know how
much our politicians love that. The effects of LSD in freeing peoples minds or
somehow waking them up to reality are exaggerated IMHO.

I mean, do you need LSD to know the government is wasting your money and
making insane legislation?

~~~
munchhausen
> The effects of LSD in freeing peoples minds or somehow waking them up to
> reality are exaggerated IMHO. > I mean, do you need LSD to know the
> government is wasting your money and making insane legislation?

Nice red herring.

Indeed, you do not need to take LSD to know that the government is wasting
money and making insane legislation. It's really pretty obvious and in the
midst of a breakthrough LSD trip, you would probably find this to be a
trifling, utterly irrelevant matter, and wouldn't waste too much time thinking
about it.

The effects of LSD on freeing people's minds lie elsewhere, not in making
people aware of the governmental abuses of power.

~~~
Nursie
>> The effects of LSD on freeing people's minds lie elsewhere, not in making
people aware of the governmental abuses of power.

So please describe what these effects would be?

And please don't think when I talk about it inducing a false sense of the
profound that I speak from ignorance or inexperience.

~~~
benched
Yes, we'll compress it into a few sentences in a Hacker News comment, to make
it as easy as possible to trivialize via verbal argument.

The very idea that you can discriminate true and "false" senses of the cosmic,
for anybody, says a lot about where you're speaking from.

~~~
Nursie
I'm sorry, but if you come back from a trip convinced of many of the things
I've seen and heard people decide when on trips... well let me just say that
some of these great and profound realisations are just nonsense when looked at
in the cold light of day later.

I'm absolutely not criticising anyone's experience of LSD, but I'm not sure
either why you refuse to contemplate that there could an inebriant and
hallucinogenic component to acid that can result in just as much drivel as you
get from a drunk.

If every experience you've ever had was a deep shamanic awakening that taught
you about yourself and the universe then that's aweseom for you. 99% of the
use of acid I've ever seen was more about giggling, talking bullshit and
staring at the pretty colours.

------
spinlock
I had a friend in college -- really smart physics major -- drop acid one
summer and lose the ability to do math. He needed to take a year off and
finally finished his degree but was never on top of his game again.

I'm not saying that always or even usually happens. But, acid is no joke and I
just wanted to make sure that the inexperience reading this know that trips
can go really wrong. Especially when you aren't using medical grade LSD but
whatever you can buy from a stranger on SilkRoad/wherever.

~~~
scott_karana
> Especially when you aren't using medical grade LSD but whatever you can buy
> from a stranger on SilkRoad/wherever

Ironically, in the heyday of Silk Road, you likely _were_ buying medical-grade
LSD if you were careful.

[http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#lsd-case-
study](http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#lsd-case-study)

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/14/4828448/silk-road-lsd-
ave...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/14/4828448/silk-road-lsd-avengers-
drug-inspectors)

~~~
mycroft-holmes
spinlock is completely misinformed on this one. Like scott_karana said, the
Silk Road was _the_ place to get high quality drugs. If I'm not mistaken, many
reputable sellers on the site had their products tested for purity.

~~~
spinlock
The link scott_karana provided said that a group calling themselves the
Avengers started rating the acid on SilkRoad because so much of it was not
pure LSD.

------
Lambdanaut
I'm all for LSD being considered for certain therapeutic cases.

I took it at a time of my life when I'd been having a sustained identity
crisis for years on end, something I'd made known to friends and family. I had
no idea who I was supposed to be and I felt like I was just running on auto-
pilot, idly guessing at how I should react to situations and being surprised
when things turned out okay. I read tons of self-help books and "know-thy-
self" pamphlets, but I was still clueless.

After the LSD, I completely knew who I was again, and I've been on that steady
path ever since.

It's a good thing to try when you need to do some introspection that you've
been having substantial trouble coming to a solution over.

I seriously believe it skipped over a decades worth of introspection for me. I
mean, I was already on year "3" of my crisis, and I had made zilch headway. It
gets you through things that are nigh impossible to do without it. That of
course combined with the low-toxicity and lack of a potential for addiction
makes it a no-brainer.

Like somebody else commented, it's like it shakes your brain up like a
snowglobe breaking all of those strongly held pathways in your brain that you
would normally be unable to even see. It destroys false pre-conceptions about
yourself like a steamroller, and then it helps you build the correct notions
back up.

------
yogi123
The most prominent researcher in LSD therapy was Stan Grof. Look up his books
- they are the definitive material for psychiatric work using psychedelics.
There are experiences in the books that will blow your mind. I believe he was
head of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins, before this research was
shut down.

However, it is interesting that he now appears to be a proponent of meditation
and other methods, as far as I know. He teaches an interesting technique
called holotropic breathing which aims to replicate the benefits without the
risk.

I think a prominent meditation teacher summed it up best when he said that
psychedelics can lead to a powerful opening, but they are not a path.

~~~
benched
Stan Grof's books are some of the best I've found on the topic of
consciousness and 'reality' in general. He is so committed to learning about
consciousness, he kept exploring the subject by whatever means he could find
or invent, even after he could no longer work with psychedelics. I was lucky
to attend a talk he gave on LSD just a few months ago.

~~~
gress
Grof believes he has communicated with aliens.

~~~
benched
That doesn't faze or surprise me. Do not get me started on the bigness or
inscrutability of the universe.

------
mvanvoorden
One trip about 2 years ago made me realize that I should not worry about
things I can't control, and changed me from the bitter, angry person I'd
become to the life loving happy person I used to be when I was young, in an
instant.

~~~
melling
Scientifically speaking, are you saying that this would be the result for most
people? Steve Jobs, for example, famously took LSD but he certainly cared
about controlling most things in his life, and sweated the details.

~~~
mvanvoorden
I like to control things as well, but not things I am not able to, like other
people, or distant wars, or politicians, etc :)

Anyway, I got a lot of insights that really changed my life for the better.
Funny thing is that most of it is common knowledge, these things that are
'easier said than done', that then turn out to be just as easy done as said :)

(I can only talk from my own perspective of course)

------
dnc
This is striking testimony about Aldous Huxley taking LSD on his deathbed
written by his wife: [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-
death.ht...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/most-beautiful-death.html).
It seems that this very emotional account is in accordance with the findings
of the Swiss psychiatrists.

------
dkarl
_Peter, the social worker, agreed. “I will say I have been more emotional
since the study ended, and I don’t mean always cheerful,” he said. “But I
think it’s better to feel things strongly — better to be alive than to merely
function.”_

It's interesting that society has long been comfortable pushing drugs that
have the opposite effect, resulting in poor compliance by patients who
complain of feeling "dead" or "not there."

------
lutusp
A quote: "After about two months of weekly therapy, the eight participants who
received full doses of LSD improved by about 20 percent on standard measures
of anxiety, and the four subjects who took a much weaker dose got worse."

I hope no one thinks this is science. There's no control group, those who
received the treatment under study knew who they were, and they were asked
about their emotional state after the treatment ended. This is a classic case
where the Placebo effect cannot be either eliminated or discounted.

This is not say that LSD has no beneficial effects in therapy. This is to say
we have no idea, and this study provides no useful scientific data.

~~~
mgr86
Yes, but if you continue reading the start of the very next paragraph
addresses this.

>The trial was far too small to be conclusive, >said Dr. Gasser, whose co-
authors include Dr. Doblin, >Dominique Holstein of UniversityHospital Zurich
and Rudolf >Brenneisen of the University of Bern.

they go on to say that

>“It’s a proof of concept,” Dr. Doblin said. >“It shows that this kind of
trial can be done safely, and >that it’s very much worth doing.” \--

which is important. This sort of research all but halted in the mid-60s. In
fact, the reason LSD even made it into popular culture can be a credited to
the fact that many who tried it in clinical trials liked it enough to take it
home a share. Of course, that is a bit of a dump down version, but not too far
from the truth.

~~~
lutusp
> Yes, but if you continue reading the start of the very next paragraph
> addresses this. "The trial was far too small to be conclusive ..."

Yes, and it's somewhat discouraging to see how rarely these appropriate
caveats never get into either the headlines or the mind of the public.

>“It’s a proof of concept,” Dr. Doblin said. >“It shows that this kind of
trial can be done safely, and >that it’s very much worth doing.”

That exactly what has not been demonstrated. A 20% change is not statistically
significant in a test group of this size even if there had been a control
group, and the placebo effect has not been controlled for. That's why I posted
as I did -- it's junk science.

Again, LSD might be a breakthrough in therapy, unfortunately this study
doesn't contribute to our scientific understanding.

------
zebra
A friend of mine had very good results in work with micro-dosing - he took
1/10 of trip dose and was more focused and creative. He suffered no
hallucinations or giggles.

EDIT: Just trying to give second good use of this substance. Easing the
suffering of a terminally ill person is good. Enhancing creativity and focus
in young person is also good.

~~~
Pxtl
To be fair, the article is about the polar opposite approach: Giving a full-
bore hallucinogenic dose to people who are dying anyways so it really can't
make their situation _worse_ , and seeing if it helps them cope with the
inevitable.

Which is very interesting. I always feel like the war on drugs is horribly
unfair to people in end-of-life situations who really should have access to
all the most destructive mind-altering chemicals to ease that.

~~~
kmtrowbr
Just to be fair, 'destructive' seems like a bad adjective to apply to LSD.
It's way, way less toxic than alcohol, for example.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm)
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_depen...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence.png)

'Mind altering' yes, I will grant you that. But most things you ingest are
mind altering. For example, this chocolate chip cookie I am eating now will
shortly make me feel a burst of energy, but then shortly afterwards, sleepy
and fat.

------
GuiA
I'm glad the taboos around psychedelics research, especially as tools for
therapy, are slowly falling down- there's some fascinating stuff in there.

To people who have never experienced drugs, grown up in a culture that
demonizes them all indiscriminately, have a hard time wrapping their head
around what they are/do exactly but are curious about them, I recommend this
article by Sam Harris, a great neuroscientist[0]

For a slightly more in depth essay, Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception" [1]
is a great book, albeit slightly dated.

There are also some extremely interesting synergies between the origins of the
computer industry and the psychedelics/California counter culture era. John
Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said" [2] is a fantastic read, although it
requires knowing about computer history a little bit already. I learned from
it that there was scientific research on LSD conducted in Menlo Park, a few
blocks away from where I used to live.

There's also a great essay by Timothy Leary about parallels between
psychedelics as tools for expanding the human mind and the computer as a tool
to enhance the human brain in Brenda Laurel's book "Art of Human Computer
Interaction Design". [3]

There's a great essay by Carl Sagan about his experiences using marijuana
creatively/intellectually [4].

I had never tried any drugs before moving to California in my 20s, and had
grown up in a fairly standard European culture of all drugs = the devil. Some
changes occurred, and it turns out there's a really fascinating history and
philosophy in there (especially w/ regards to parallels with computer history,
as described in the aforementioned book).

[0]: [http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-
of-...](http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life)

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Of-Perception-
thINKing/dp/19...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Of-Perception-
thINKing/dp/1907590099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956956&sr=8-1&keywords=doors+of+perception)

[2]: [http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-
Pers...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-
Personal/dp/0143036769/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956981&sr=8-1&keywords=dormouse+said)

[3]: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface-
Desig...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface-
Design/dp/0201517973/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393956970&sr=8-2&keywords=art+of+human+computer+interaction)

[4]: [http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/](http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/)

~~~
EC1
Before entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one
coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's
super social to go smoke a joint with my bosses after work and have a beer, I
love it.

I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day,
drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity.

I feel as if the emotional/mental pain I suffered by not having any outlet
greatly outweighs the physical damage I'm doing to myself.

Now that I smoke/drink while working most of the time (self unemployed), I
find that I am much more productive because I'm enjoying myself the entire
time. Tunes, a drink, a smoke, and code.

Never seen talk on HN about drugs really. What's your routine like with HN?
What are your experiences?

~~~
today
I thought I had things under control with weed. Gradually I realised I was
using it to cope with chronic depression due to an earlier personal tragedy.

Weed probably is great when things are actually in order in your life, but you
may be losing contact with reality precisely because it makes it possible to
enjoy yourself the entire time. I think you have to be very mindful of that.

It's a painful processes, turning to face life directly, but I feel like I'm
managing to do so day by day. Part of this processes involves speaking to a
psychiatrist and starting an SNRI prescription.

I do plan to smoke weed again, cautiously, once things are "in order".

It's funny - when I used to smoke weed, I always felt like I needed to clear
my daily todo list before hand. I would take out the trash I should have taken
out, put clothes in the laundry, maybe respond to some lingering emails. It
was quite productive.

Now I'm recapitulating that pattern at a higher level in life. At least, I
hope that's what's happening...

~~~
makmanalp
Thank you for this - I'm always concerned that people miss this. I recall
someone I know noticing that they just didn't enjoy smoking anymore, and it
was actually making them more anxious. Without going into a discussion about
why this happened, it took them a long time to realize this because they were
rationalizing their use, and using more to counter the fact that they were
feeling "off" after the regular amount.

As a non-smoker, it's one of my fears that if this happens again, I won't be
able to convince one of my smoking friends that this is happening to them.
Mental dependence seems insidious in that way. Any pointers? Experiences to
share?

~~~
MarkPNeyer
this experience was mine, too. i really liked it at first, and grew to hate it
because i kept doing it even though i didn't want to.

reddit.com/r/leaves is a great resource for quitting. if you read the posts
there, you'll see that same story over and over and over.

------
rachellaw
If anyone is seriously considering taking LSD please check for drug/chemical
interactions first

Most drugs have zero effect if you have ptsd, clinical depression and
schizoaffective or similar; LSD will probably make it worse and party drugs
(amphetamines) won't work on you. Everyone else will get high, and you'll be
bored and sober.

~~~
hnisnotreddit
Hallucinogens have done wnders for my PTSD and depression issues. Please do
not confuse them with Amphetamines or other non-hallucinogens.

That said, if you are on MAOI's or SSRI's, you would do well to end their use
before attempting any hallucinogen stronger than cannabis.

~~~
rachellaw
yes that's my concern (drug interactions) I've seen curious users mix all
kinds of things without checking first, and they've never had any experience
in doing drugs (either legal or illegal) and end up worse off

In terms of reactions, I think it varies from person to person. Generally
speaking though, hallucinogens aggravate existing psychotic disorders. If you
suffer from PTSD/depression it's not a psychotic disorder (so it's relatively
safe for you to take).

Curiously enough, a subset of patients suffering from ptsd/depression/anxiety
don't experience the euphoria associated with amphetamines. I'm sorry if I
didn't word myself clearly enough

------
ambiguator
They'd probably have better results if they did their experiment outdoors.

------
conradfr
My mother suffered from cluster headaches recently (the worst pain you can
endure in life they say).

Apparently mushrooms and LSD are unofficial treatments. When asked, her doctor
encouraged her to use mushrooms ...

Apparently a non-psychedelic version of LSD could be made but it's difficult
to justify spending millions in research with the official stance regarding
drugs.

I'm glad change seems to come, albeit slowly ...

~~~
dave809
Did the mushrooms help?

~~~
conradfr
They have been ordered but not received yet.

~~~
filoeleven
I heard from a friend who gets bad migraines that you do not need to take a
full dose, causing psychedelic effects, in order to get the relief/prevention.
She said that a half dose prevented migraines for about two weeks. I do not
know if the same strategy would work for cluster headaches, or even if it's a
universally applicable characteristic of the drug, but if your mother is not
the adventurous type or is unsure about tripping, she may want to try a
smaller amount first to see if she can get the prevention without the mind-
altering effects. Good luck in any case.

~~~
conradfr
Yes it's true. That was a deciding factor to try it as she is against drugs
for herself by fear of bad trip :)

The only downside (well except the breaking the law thing) is only that you
have to be off the regular treatment to try it, so you may have to endure the
pain for some days.

------
samstave
Unpopular opinion penguin:

If you're in tech and have not done LSD; you should notbe in tech.

~~~
benched
I wouldn't put it so absolutely, but I agree that the kind of people who
manipulate some of the most complex systems ever devised by humankind, are the
kind of people who would probably benefit greatly from a trip.

~~~
samstave
True, but then my statement wouldn't be meme-y enough :)

------
uptownJimmy
This stuff can be no surprise to many of us, right? I'm not sure I would have
made it out of the darkness of my formative years without those profound
psychotropic experiences I had as a young man.

------
veganarchocap
They should reconsider MDMA for therapy as well, there was no good reason to
ban it, and it was working well for people with post traumatic stress
syndrome, people with terminal illnesses etc.

------
smonff
This is not new. It is known for depression treatment for a long time.

------
jolohaga
Glad to see a return to awakening.

------
imperio59
Yes, let's all get high so we won't face any of our problems...

What a load of garbage. This is science?! No, it's a fucking fraud.

------
skidoo
Way to go, Obamacare.

