Psychology

Microdosing with acid…

 …people are exploring alternative medicines to help them function and live happily in today’s fast-paced, tech-warped world. …people don’t like to drink anymore. People don’t like to be hungover. Alcohol is a toxin, so it does tend to be stressful for the body. We have other things to enjoy and alter our consciousness for fun…

READ MORE
Psychology

…entrepreneurs and the resistance to old-school psychedelia

If strong psychotropic effects are edited out of the process – as [some of] these new companies are attempting to do – then the old-school psychedelic experience has been pre-empted as unnecessary… [some] entrepreneurs have pledged allegiance to… [some version of this] thinking. The resistance to ‘psychedelic’ goes beyond mere semantic squeamishness. Johnson and Johnson,…

READ MORE
Psychology

Why taking psychedelics is a lot like scuba diving…

…how about the mental healthcare therapists and psychiatrists who work with psychedelics, in clinical trials and beyond – shouldn’t they also be experienced psychedelic divers before they work with these substances? Well. This is a sensitive question, I’ve come to realize. I have been hesitant to speak my mind about it… There are many parallels…

READ MORE
Psychology

The psychedelic escape from depression

The durability of treatment could… be challenged by commercial pressure to reduce the psychiatric component of psilocybin therapy, so that the drug can be given to as many people as possible.  Charles Raison, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who is currently overseeing a phase II clinical trial of psilocybin, is concerned about how…

READ MORE
Psychology

The lazy stoner myth debunked…

“Our evidence indicates that cannabis use does not appear to have an effect on motivation for recreational users. The participants in our study included users who took cannabis on average four days a week and they were no more likely to lack motivation,” said Professor Barbara Sahakian, researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the…

READ MORE
Psychology

…psilocybin transformative power minimizes suffering and allows a lasting sense of peace

Psychologists distinguish radical transformative experiences as “quantum changes,” as opposed to incremental behavioral-based shifts. But the two are not mutually exclusive. An epiphany prompted by psilocybin can give rise to a new enthusiasm, curiosity, or sense of wonder that can trigger behavioral changes. Psilocybin offers a route to an alternate view of reality, in which…

READ MORE
Psychology

Get ready for the magic mushroom…

Even a decade ago, psychedelic drugs were limited to a fringe of mystics and experiential adventurers, just as they had been in Western societies for most of modernity. Today they’re approaching mainstream acceptance. It’s been a dizzying turnabout. Helping to drive the shift is a growing scientific literature that ratifies what the mystics have long…

READ MORE
Psychology

Psychedelics… understanding… chronic pain

Living with chronic pain affects daily life and has social implications. Chronic pain can be associated with any disease that may be genetic, idiopathic, or traumatic. These drugs may not help cure all types of pain as the same drugs cannot cure all diseases. However, in chronic pain disorders, the patient’s life is impaired as…

READ MORE
Psychology

Study finds lsd therapy strikingly effective at reducing anxiety and depression

…published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, a team of Swiss researchers administered 20 participants, who were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, and a further 22 participants with a mental disorder, significant amounts of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)… Participants of the study received either LSD or a placebo over three visits covering a 24-week period. The ones who…

READ MORE