It's fascinating that a monthly visit to your local shaman may still be more safe and effective for depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline than anything western medicine has been able to produce.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/abbierosner/2020/02/21/microdos...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6463489/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343205/

[4] https://www.beingpatient.com/could-psychedelics-help-treat-a...

"Punching-the-hippy" politics aside, the political leaders told us there was nothing beneficial ever about those drugs, and we typically believed them, even lumping scientists who wanted to study them in the same camp as the "UFO Cranks".

So the question is, is it western medicine that's the issue, or the lack of science based politics?

I get that in some people it can be a wonderful thing, nearly a miracle cure. I've done plenty of psychedelics myself, but I always find the insistence by proponents that any harm done is the fault of the user ("poor preparation", "not the right setting", "inexperienced guide", etc, etc) to be really disingenuous and unscientific. Like, there are legit some people that really won't respond well to this as therapy.

Now, conventional pharmaceuticals and therapy have the same issues, but the reality is psychedelic therapies have never been a clear favorite.

I'd taken psychedelics perhaps 50-60 times before I had one out-of-nowhere bad experience that caused more harm than all the good I'd gotten out of them in my life.

I'm not against psychedelics after this either, huge supporter, but people like to pretend traumatic experiences don't have a chance of occuring.

I don't think I can do that much, but what I can do is offer some theories and context.

(Note: I wrote at length about this experience, and my general experiences with both psychedelics + MDMA here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991744)

I'll write the following under the assumption that you/the reader don't have experience with psychedelics. There are some things you can put into words for those unfamiliar, and a great many other things you cannot.

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Psychedelics are a fundamentally neutral substance. What I mean by that is, that they and the experience, are neither good nor bad. As hippy as it sounds, "they are what you make of them".

This quality, if you ask me, boils down to one property: Psychedelics are enhancers. If you feel beautiful and happy and lively, you feel REALLY beautiful, happy, and lively.

If you start to become frightened/anxious of something, or are in a frightening situation, you become REALLY frightened.

And this becomes further amplified by a second property of psychedelics:

Rather than the usual business of "Some external occurrence or sensation happened, and here is my one thought/reaction to it." IE "Wow, that statement was rude, what a jerk." Or "Man, that dark alleyway looks kind of scary, I think I'll not go that way."

Your subconscious and free-association become stronger respective of dose, to the point where they can become runaway.

No longer is the equation "1 external action = 1 internal processing response", but some small experience can set off a chain reaction of internal association tumbling down a bunch of different paths.

Dark alleyway -> Oh that's scary -> That's the sort of place monsters would be -> Monsters, oh those are terrifying -> Murder is terrifying -> I don't want to be murdered -> There's probably a monster in that dark alleyway -> Dark alleyway, that's so terrifying -> You know what's probably in there, a monster? -> A monster would murder me -> I don't want to die -> Die.. death...

It becomes a looping, inescapable schizophrenic sort of experience where you've also lost enough short-term memory to forget you've been going in loops like this for what feels like years.

And because things are so ENHANCED, the amount of screaming terror, dread, etc you can feel is beyond any thing you can comprehend. Time is slowed to a crawl, this can continue for eternity.

Now, if that all sounds awful -- just imagine this whole scenario, but filled with the most intense happiness and love you can imagine. That's what MOST experiences are like, generally.

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What happened that night is I started getting anxious and fell into a dark place in my mind and got stuck there for an eternity instead of a happy place, to put it shortly.

I also won't pretend I probably didn't have a lot of subconscious trauma from a really messed up childhood and likely other mental issues/insecurities.

The time element of a deep LSD trip can make it very challenging. Being stuck in your thoughts for 18 hours is not for the light hearted

There are a significant number of people who view the psychedelic substances they use as teachers, as sacred, as emissaries of gods or other supernatural beings, or as those beings themselves.

Though such views are often dismissed as superstition or magical thinking by many who consider themselves part of "advanced", "civilized" societies, and who view these substances more as neutral tools, such societies' confrontation with these substances is relatively young, and I suspect that as they gain more experience with them their views will change.

Use of these substances have already been the wellspring from which multiple religions have come, and the potential for them to spawn more major religious movements, and with them a much more deferential attitude towards and view of these substances, will only grow as their use increases.

Kind of like how more experience with nature moved those same societies to not want to destroy it? While it's reasonable to question underlying prejudice and (frankly) very little actual knowledge I do not think that's going to be solved with more experience. We just don't see that reflected in reality. Most of Western society is fossilised, hostile and fundamentally exploitative. Having those attitudes change would involve a complete overhaul of the underlying cultures, which just isn't likely.

So the entire culture doesn't have to be overhauled to have a massive influence. During and after the 60's there was a backlash against the counterculture -- a backlash that was ultimately very effective in some ways, and one which continues today, but I do believe a lot of people will start to once again see that another way is possible once psychedelic use becomes more widespread and mainstream. That potential is one of the few things that gives me a sliver of hope about humanity's future.

Thinking about this further - have bad trips been observed in clinical studies where the the LSD was created in a controlled, ideal lab setting?

Would be interesting to know if this was or wasn't the case; could indicate a bad trip is an unavoidable potential side-effect, or if it is a specific reaction to poorly created LSD.

Its not the substance purity, but some people are a mess, and sometimes they don't realize/admit it. Some become mess with frequent use. Those definitely shouldn't play with stronger stuff, whatever that is for them.

It will. I'll stake my life-savings on it too.

>Thinking about this further - have bad trips been observed in clinical studies where the the LSD was created in a controlled, ideal lab setting?

Yes, actually, the results here are the ones usually criticized by psychonauts for causing bad trips due to "bad settings" or "poor preparation". There's a bit of truth to that, but the bad trips are always going to happen.

What would be nice is that you get the benefits of the drug without any of the "bad trip" experiences, in a controlled way.

Now, I wouldn't wish my own bad trips on anyone, but I've found I learned far, far more from them than I did my good trips, so in that sense they were actually beneficial.

Also, the term "bad trip" may be a misnomer. They might be more fittingly called "difficult trips" or "challenging trips". It is possible to draw meaning and even wisdom from such trips.

For some, maybe even most, but it would be irresponsible to assume that it would be the case for everyone, and this is exactly the sort of blaming the victim of the bad trip for "doing it wrong" that I was talking about. Somehow it's their fault for having a bad trip, or for looking at it wrong and failing to "correctly" integrate it into their worldview.

Humans are a diverse group. That line of thinking just doesn't work from a clinical perspective.

Yes, things could go wrong even if one takes every reasonable precaution, is in the best frame of mind, etc. That's why having helped from experienced people you can trust is a good idea, but even that offers no guarantees.

There are no guarantees in life for anything. You could break your neck climbing a ladder to change a lightbulb. People can and do suffer severe accidents (including severe brain damage) skiing, driving, or crossing the street.

Yes, you should be aware of the risks and look both ways when crossing the street, but you could still suffer some accident even then. For some the risky activity is worth it, for others not. For those who think it is, it's helpful to educate oneself and take reasonable precautions. No blame necessary or intended.

How about lack of science based medicine?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383819

Western medicine, which I would rather call scientific medicine is not against psychedelics and natural remedies, but instead of telling you to eat the funny shaped mushroom, it will study what exactly is in that mushroom, extract the good stuff, remove the bad, maybe try to improve it. It will then test it, with accurate dosing and if everything goes well, produce a treatment that is similar to what the shaman did but better.

I'd say the only thing the shaman has over a registered doctor is that he can spend more time with you, and hopefully have a positive influence on your lifestyle. But it is not a shortcoming of scientific medicine, in fact, it recognizes it. It is more about doctors being too few and overworked.

These are alpha-blockers for treating migraines or hypertension. There are psychotropic drugs based on these as well, and a bunch of discredited nootropics.

Now, high BDNF on its own is not a good or bad thing. It is released both when injuries and when growth happens...

I would be very careful recommending a shaman, unless you happen to have evidence for how well traditional approach to treatment works compared to recent drugs or current mental health treatments, or a precise description of what those people do, as it's more than just "take this drug and go home". We could use such studies for sure, and not for cultural appropriation!

We lack sufficient data to recommend for or against. (Partly because countries virtually banned research because "drugs" are "bad". Others are trying to hold it exclusive for their culture, which is wrong too. I think they should stand to gain from it if it works.)

Shamans are more like tour guides. Walking you through your own experience.

It is good to remember though that these approaches exist, and to let them be practiced safely and openly. As well as researched without interrupting it.

A tour guide does specific things. We could know what makes for a good or bad one.

Is a person who fakes the practice as good as a native life long taught shaman? Which kind of shaman is best? Is tailoring the experience needed and in what way? Etc.

That said, maybe it's more important to look at how these have been dealt with in the past than the data we have in the present.

The spike can just as well be caused by bad environment we made for ourselves, ecologically and psychologically.

The problem is, we really do not know what we're doing when dealing with mental issues. Typical western approach is only slightly better than dosing people with random psychedelic substances of mostly unknown effects. The science done in field of psychotherapy is low to non-existent quality. Methodologies are in their infancy.

Of course something barely effective will fail.

While I don't doubt there is some human component to this, what I worry about are interactions with standard prescriptions and OTC medicines.

Those risks are always weighted against benefits.

I get the romanticized enthusiasm but let’s not crap on scientific process that easily. Sure there has been political pressures that stagnated psychedelic research, but for a while western medicine has been trying to work this out in a replicable and safely administrable manner. Shamans don’t operate under those limitations, hence the apparent “superiority”, with all associated, undocumented risks.

To get to the point of this paper, there are “western” substances that help with BDNF and cognitive decline too, eg. lithium, which is not as psychoactive and has a perfectly well documented risk profile (not saying risk free).

I’m intrigued by lions mane because it’s legal, of course.

The "stack" is insane as we do not understand what each of the components does separately or in any combination and the rationale for including one of them is based on discredited ideas.

An interesting thing to know is how seizures and mental illnesses interact, for instance. Yes, we're talking ancient early XX century "connect a brain to electric current" kind of thing but at better precision. Electroshock therapy. We know so very little here.

It could well be that psychedelics and this share the mechanism of action. Or not.

But such effects are only present when you take like 100ug, not the few micrograms that would constitute a microdose.

Those damn mucous membranes, they really get ya. Must have touched my lips absentmindedly.

Before I realized, I was in bed trying to sleep. Restless, tossing and turning. Eventually started feeling that unmistakable body high around 1am. Anyone who’s done LSD before knows the sensation I’m talking about, you can’t miss it.

Cue a couple hours of having no idea how much I had dosed. I was trying to keep a loose subjective accounting of the time. In my head I’m simulating the different possibilities: either I dosed the equivalent of 1 hit a couple hours ago, 2hits an hour ago, or 4+ hits 30 minutes ago. It wasn’t until I passed peak that those different forked realities collapsed like the wave function and it became clear to me that I’d dosed something like 250 ug.

I didn’t sleep that night, as you can imagine. But the run I went on when the sun finally came up at 6am was incredible.

One thing that makes me skeptical of most people talking about LSD on forums is that for you to really lose your shit on LSD (excusing mental illness), you have to take enough to lose your ability to do that sort of thinking and rationalizing. You aren't having a laugh with your friends on a monster dose while listening to Spiritualized. You're more like a newborn animal clutching on to a world you were just born into, the dose regressing you back into a sequence of instincts away from high level human thought.

Some people just laugh at everything.

That being said, you are more likely to be fine than not on 125ug-175ug, but responses are really variable. I've discovered that I'm very steady on psychedelics and so I can handle physical discomfort (jitteriness etc) and not have a bad time, but there's a certain archetype of individual that has trouble handling the raw barrage of stimulus that tripping represents.

So, you would probably be okay but I would recommend no more than 100ug taken in a natural setting (rather than being stuck inside your house).

Cheers.

(1) Be careful who you choose as a trip sitter. Some people are really bad at it and just end up being super annoying because they're staring at you like you're a zoo animal and keep asking you if you "see colors". Which is a long way of saying, make sure your trip sitter has actually taken psychedelics before, the utility of bringing a sober person along just because they're sober if they don't have psychedelic experience is quite low. (There are some individuals that have never done drugs yet still "get it" so I'm not talking about them to be clear)

(2) Working up doses over time is very good advice, most bad experiences are a result of taking too much in the wrong environment, and/or neglecting the basics. I've found 90% of trip discomfort is solved with water, a blanket, or changing up your physical environment.

But it is worth mentioning that accidentally taking a heavier dose because you think it's a normal dose - can sometimes work out, in the sense that once you've taken, say, 2.5g of shrooms you can't imagine taking 3.5g. I've noticed this particularly with DMT, if you don't get absolutely blasted it's easy to get anchored and be afraid to really commit to a breakthrough experience (as much as I hate the duality / binarity of the whole "breakthrough" concept there's definitely some truth to it)

So: taking a heavy dose as nooby is a terrible idea and thus I never recommend it. But sometimes the terrible idea works out in your favor :)

It's extrapolated from psilocybin dosage but it seems about right.

It was just my imagination as confirmed by the sober driver and other passengers.

I was aware that my mind was wandering though - at a higher dose I might not have been aware of that.

More broadly you are right, they’re not “hallucinations”. Huge pet peeve of mine when people call them that.

I was telling a friend who’s never tripped on anything about seeing faces in the cliffs. They looked at me like I was stark raving mad and I realized they thought I meant I was seeing a photo-realistic face implanted on the cliff face instead of the reality which was like when (sober) people are gazing at clouds and “seeing” patterns.

Most of us when we are new to tripping make it all about the “visuals”. But the realization eventually comes that in order to get the really crazy visuals your whole reality needs to be tripping really hard and one way it manifests is the visual field. There’s no way to experience “just visuals”, it’s going to come with the bodily sensations and altered temporal processing etc.

I’ve always found it fascinating how people interpret the melting away of time. Some describe it as lasting “forever”, but that’s just the word they’re using to describe the notion that getCurrentTime() is returning null rather than a fixed number.

Can you explain what you mean by this? I've never had the time-dilation effects.

The best guide is https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/comments/8e7g6n/how_to_grow.... Expect to read a lot before you start growing.

> Animal studies have implicated the neurotrophin BDNF and the growth factor IGF‐1 in mediating the beneficial effects of exercise on hippocampal function and structure as well as cognition. In humans, findings are less clear since exercise‐induced increases in peripheral BDNF have been consistently shown only immediately after a single bout of aerobic exercise. Studies involving longer exercise interventions (i.e., 6 weeks up to 1 year) have reported mixed results. While the majority of reports have found no changes in circulating BDNF and IGF‐1 at the end of the training period, Zoladz and colleagues (2008) demonstrated increased plasma BDNF after 5 weeks of endurance training in physically active male adults. Further, Leckie et al. (2014) found that 1 year of moderate‐intensity walking significantly elevated serum BDNF only in individuals older than 65 years of age. Lastly, Heisz et al. (2017) reported that, although no group differences in serum BDNF were found following 6 weeks of high‐intensity interval training in young adults, participants with greater fitness improvements had higher serum BDNF levels than their counterparts with lower fitness gains.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6555846/

From this, I'd guess one wouldn't see a sustained increase in BDNF levels from microdosing either.

I think a lot of X correlates with Y studies are just kinda crap for a number of reasons, including that we don't have extremely good baselines -- e.g. continuous 24 hour monitoring across a wide population in a multitude of circumstances.

I don’t think their research allows us to infer anything about BDNF response at these levels, which is what I (possibly mistakenly) assumed you were asking about.

It takes about an hour to kick in, and for me, lasts about 6-8 hours.

It feels like it silences any inner critic in me, so I am a lot more free thinking. I have used it several times to overcome getting stuck on a programming problem, but I have to write the solution down because I usually get too distracted while using it to be able to focus enough to implement. The problems it's good at are ones that require abstract thought - for example I was trying to come up with a data structure to accurately represent atomic 3D structures, and then also algorithms to query them and model how they interact, this is where it was most useful for me. I came out with 10ish pages of notes and drawings that were enough to allow "sober" me to code it out and test it.

Physically it makes me sweat a lot, but it's a very strange sweat - not like an exercise sweat - but the sweat feels very clean and pure and is odourless. I often shallow breathe and it suppresses my appetite, so I have to set reminders on my phone to eat, exercise and drink while I'm taking it.

Everything feels like it's clean and my visual resolution goes up a lot more, it's interesting for me to see how much of what we see is perceptual and not limited by the physics of our eye - I can see a lot more clearly and everything feels "cleaner"

I sometimes get visual effects, which I can only describe as absolutely beautiful and mind blowing. It's very hard to describe because I can control them to a certain extent and as a neurotic person I thought that the "loss of control" would freak me out, but it's not like that at all. Last time I used I saw the most beautiful honey-like flowing pattern in the wood grain of the door, which was continuously moving and just utterly beautiful. I also witnessed the curtains rotating (imagine a sine wave going up and down, the curtains looked like they were doing that) and also the pillows on the couch looked like they were breathing.

The bad side is that it stops me from sleeping, so the next day I'm usually a zombie until I can get a good night sleep the following night.

It's an amazing tool, and I love how creative it makes me as a senior programmer, but there's no way I'd do it every day or anything.

The first time you do it, you should definitly do it with someone experienced and in a safe place, where you have no other obligations for that day. If the feeling is getting too intense I find that a citrus drink seems to decrease the intensity (I have no idea if thats a placebo or not)

If anyone has any questions ask away

The idea is to gain the positive effects of it without it making you high.

Around 10-20 is when people start noticing effects, being a small dose.

50, being half a dose, can feel very "muddy", as in, its kind of "half assed". You start to feel more high, but not as visual and enjoyable.

Normal dose would be the typical 100.

Although people's experiences of different dosages vary a lot. For some the sweetspot might be 70-100, for others it's 200-250.

Based on your description, it sounds like around half a dose, if you just sometimes get visual effects.

There is an interesting exercise for people with somewhat functional upper mind and I wonder what's going to happen if you try it in that LSD-elevated state. The exercise is just focused thinking about the relationship between sound and space. Before the exercise begins, the "trainee" needs to get a good understanding of the two concepts. First think about what the general idea of sound is: what really makes sound a sound? Then think of space as the spacetime in the GR theory: it's some kind of fundamental structure that obeys wave-like GR equations, so it naturally has all sorts of quantum-scale ripples and large gravity waves. Once you have a grip on the two concepts, the exercise begins: combine the two thoughts and stare at the "mix" with your mind.

For average folks this will produce no effect. But for those with somewhat working upper mind and well functioning lower mind, this produces one specific effect. I basically wonder if LSD allows you to skip a very long training process and enter the mode, at least temporarily, to make this exercise useful.

P.S. As to what that effect is, I'd say it doesn't matter. If it works, you'll see it. Turning on lights is a matter of flipping a switch, not the knowledge of electricity.

First, it made me understand the concept of good and bad "vibes" w.r.t. to drug use. It was clear that the experience of taking LSD recreationally in a group of people was a much a social experience as a chemical one. Keeping the "vibe" positive, by playing the right kind of music, staying chill, and saying and doing the right things, was important not to break the spell. Unfortunately, as somebody who suffers from social anxiety, this awareness made things quite stressful for me at times, as I felt I had to constantly maintain some level of self-regulation, which was not made easier by how intoxicated I was. I have the same problem when smoking weed in company.

Second, while I hoped for the kind of psychological breakthroughs and revelations that some people describe having using LSD, I didn't experience them. I never felt connected to the universe or some greater purpose. I certainly had periods of intense introspection, but they didn't reveal anything to my about my character I wasn't already aware of. I think part of that was that I was already in my mid-thirties at the time, and had done plenty of introspection over the years. I already had a good understanding of my own character — my strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears and regrets — and I suspect anybody with a similar disposition won't have any breakthroughs using LSD.

Ultimately, I didn't regret trying LSD, but it didn't leave me with any desire to try it again. Despite its reputation, it just seemed like another drug to me. Stronger in its effect than most, but I never felt like a child of the universe, I just felt high.

However, different drugs do affect different people differently. So it's possible you're just not very sensitive to LSD, but it is pretty unlikely. With the right dose, set, and setting, it's unlikely that you would be so unimpressed.

To maximize the chance of having a productive experience you'll want to make sure each of those elements is as helpful to your goals as possible.

What the appropriate set is will also depend on your setting, which includes not just the physical environment, but also what's happening there, and the people around you and their own mindsets and attitudes towards what you're going through, their ability to facilitate the experience, etc.

For example, while generally one is discouraged for partaking in psychedelics if one suffers from mental illness, in the context of psychedelic therapy with a trained therapist you like, trust, and respect, that could work for certain conditions.

But if you do have a mental illness please consult a trained, professional therapist before making a decision on this matter.

By huge margin consistently the most intense experience in my life, and I've been through some stuff (birth of my son, 6 months backpacking in Himalaya, adrenaline/mountain sports, not in that order).

That was some 10 years ago, I don't even feel the need to try again. Kind of lesson took, not much more to gain, only risking some bad drama.

You will very much likely have a much different experience, as you have a (pretty much) different brain for the psychedelics to work on -- as well as a lot of new experiences and memories floating inside your noggin.

Perception of time is altered (slowd down mostly), you can see intricate pulsating, kaleidoscopic, patterns in ordinary things (flowers, the floor, carpet, etc), you get deep thoughts and feelings (can be a rollercoaster), it greatly enhances music (it's like seeing in color for the first time). Sex on it is not bad either...

Never had a bad trip, ymmv.

But, it also gave me some interesting experiences, like the confusion of senses. Truly smelling colors was a weird one, one that I remember very vividly. Other than that, it’s lots of fireworks for the mind.

There’s something interesting to be found around ~1200mics but it’s -definitely- not something for the inexperienced to try.

But yeah, you pretty much tend to remember everything that happens to you during a trip, even years afterwards, which naively makes me believe your brain and memories become more malleable during that timeframe. This would explain why bad trips could be traumatizing.

Then there's gwern who did a RCT self-experiment and reported no benefits but the way he measured said 'benefits' (stupid little tests, self-rating) isn't convincing.

This doesn't much change the summary. Even at face-value (though you have to wonder about losing 80% of their data), what functional changes does some transient blood serum increases in BDNF cause, and why would some chemical results noticeably change one's assessment of the experimental evidence reported so far? It will be much more interesting to read the other data, which, however, remains unknown: "assessment of mood, cognition, empathy, and creativity that will be reported elsewhere." (That's from the pain paper reporting this study. Apparently they intend to salami-slice this study into at least 3 papers.)

I don't drink beer, I can't see why it tastes better then Grog.

1. Plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels after severe traumatic brain injury. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/02699052.2015.10.... Brain Injury Journal.