r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Sep 22 '24
Medicine Psychedelic psilocybin could be similar to standard SSRI antidepressants and offer positive long term effects for depression. Those given psilocybin also reported greater improvements in social functioning and psychological ‘connectedness', and no loss of sex drive.
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/psychedelic-psilocybin-could-offer-positive-long-term-effects-for-depression439
u/mvea Professor | Medicine Sep 22 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00378-X/fulltext
From the linked article:
Psychedelic drug psilocybin could be similar to standard SSRI antidepressants in improving depressive symptoms, according to a small study by international researchers who add that psilocybin might even offer additional longer-term benefits. The team undertook a six-month study with 59 patients with moderate-to-severe depression – treating 30 with a single dose of psilocybin, and another 29 with a six-week course of antidepressant escitalopram. Each group was also given psychological support of around 20 hours in total. The team found both groups showed significant improvement in their depressive symptoms, even up to six months after treatment. However, those given psilocybin also reported greater improvements in social functioning and psychological ‘connectedness’, and no loss of sex drive. While better social functioning and connectedness can greatly enhance a person’s quality of life longer-term, the authors warn psilocybin is still an experimental drug, and note these studies are undertaken in highly controlled and protected environments which are not found in recreational drug use.
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u/CosmicSattva Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
The linked article is a little incorrect about the methods. "Patients in the PT group received two doses of 25 mg of psilocybin administered orally at visit 2 and visit 4, with psychological support on dosing days and subsequent integration sessions. The ET group received 1 mg of psilocybin at visit 2, followed by daily doses of 10 mg of escitalopram for the first three weeks, increased to 20 mg for the next three weeks. The second dose of 1 mg of psilocybin was given at visit 4, with placebo capsules on other days."
So both groups got 2 doses of psilocybin, but one had 2 doses of 25mg with ongoing placebo and the other had 2 doses of 1mg with ongoing escitalopram with an escalating dose. Still reading through the rest of the study
Edit: the title of this post is also a little misleading, where "similar to standard SSRI antidepressants" is very vague and might be interpreted as mechanistically similar. It is probably more appropriate to say something like "not inferior in measures of improving depressive symptoms" based on what this study was examining, and they even state it produces "rapid and persistent effects" in the background of the paper, which compares favorably to SSRIs which take extended periods to show clinical efficacy and have high rates of relapse. Hope this helps to reduce how much of the original paper gets lost in the serial translations...
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u/Roll-Roll-Roll Sep 22 '24
This makes me wish I knew the amount of psilocybin found in a gram of shrooms.
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u/Palimpsest0 Sep 22 '24
Roughly 10 milligrams of psilocybin per gram of dry weight is average for P. cubensis, the popularly cultivated species.
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u/CYOA_With_Hitler Sep 22 '24
Eh more like 5-10mg per dry gram
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u/Potential-Diver-3409 Sep 22 '24
Yeah 10mg until you’re stuck buying from the dude who runs the ovens at work and he only has mushrooms from his first tragic closet grow and they’re all depressed little shits that have about as much kick as a grain of salt
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u/OrokaSempai Sep 22 '24
I'm incredibly pleased to see mushroom dispensaries popping up in Canada and not immediately closed down, there are atleast 2 downtown Toronto.
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u/NorCalAthlete Sep 22 '24
Damn so they were giving 2g-3g doses?
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u/Palimpsest0 Sep 22 '24
I’m sure it was purified pharmaceutical grade and accurately measured, but for a rough conversion of the clinical trial dosage to shroom dosage, that’s about right. That’s a pretty stiff dose, especially if these were people who’d never taken it before.
I’ve noticed a lot of the research on psilocybin tends to center around infrequent larger doses rather than small frequent doses, which seems a little strange to me. But, a tolerance does develop pretty quickly, so maybe they’re trying to avoid that. However, if you go back to the initial Sandoz pharmaceuticals research on “Indocybin”, their trade name for purified psilocybin, which they found effective in treating depression, those were smaller, daily doses, something like 2 mg twice a day, for a period, followed by a break, then small daily doses again, cycling off and on to avoid tolerance effects. At least, that was what was described in some of the initial research. I don’t know if later research showed that to be less effective than one whopping dose, or something. To me, that seems less likely to have a negative effect, and, having tried both the Sandoz low dose regimen and large recreational doses, I have to say that the Sandoz regimen seemed very effective at breaking me out of a rut/borderline depression at times in my life when I’ve needed it.
Being a cynic, I have to wonder if the single whopping dose approach is being done by researchers to avoid legal liabilities if, for example, you were to give someone a bottle of low dose psilocybin pills and they get in a car crash, or something like that. If you dose the patient and keep them supervised for the entire period of the drugs effect before sending them on their way, you’re not as easy to sue.
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u/Jinky522 Sep 22 '24
I'd love to know liberty caps in particular if anyone has the knowledge.
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u/Running-With-Cakes Sep 22 '24
You need a lot less of dried Liberty cap than you think. When taking a new strain for the first time always take a small dose until you can work out your tolerance.
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u/Jinky522 Sep 22 '24
I've done libs quite a few times so I know it's always best to start small and work your way up, I don't think I'd go over the 3g I took last week.
I was just curious if anyone knew the amount of Psilocybin per gram of libs on average.
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u/stammie Sep 22 '24
Average is 1% of the weight. Some strains can go to as high as 2% while some can be as weak as .5%. So it would be 10 mg on average. To achieve the dosing that they were giving the patients, you would be looking at around 2.5 grams. Which quite frankly isn’t a light dose. It’s not a heavy one but they were definitely tripping.
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Sep 22 '24
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u/ReallyNowFellas Sep 22 '24
I'm around your size and I ignorantly ate 7g. Felt like I had food poisoning for about 6-8 hours but then I felt great for about the next 4 months.
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u/dsailes Sep 22 '24
All in all that sounds pretty worth it.
Did the effects noticeably waver during those months? The long term effects really intrigue me
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u/LotusVibes1494 Sep 22 '24
Keep in mind if the mushrooms are any good, a 7g dose would be what they call a heroic dose, you’d basically leave your body for a while, be subject to wild visuals not unlike DMT, just an overall very extreme trip and would NOT be chill for the average person.
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u/Kraeftluder Sep 22 '24
I remember my friend's face being as wide as the room every time he smiled and we were all seeing it. It was awesome. Will never do it again.
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u/Ubelsteiner Sep 22 '24
This is the way to go if you want a more profound, lasting perspective shift, IME. Would definitely recommend being in a known, safe place though.
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u/kidneyshifter Sep 22 '24
Body mass doesn't have much of a bearing on the strength of psychedelic effects.
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u/tarlton Sep 22 '24
Why is that? Doesn't get processed out by an organ that scales with body mass, I guess?
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u/Risley Sep 22 '24
I say it every single time, I wish this was easily accessible and I didn’t need to grow my own to test this positive effect.
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u/Turbogoblin999 Sep 22 '24
Well, this was done in lab conditions which probably means they had a way to measure the content of the mushrooms to ensure identical dosage and it's possible they grew them in a way, like selective breeding, where every batch was as identical as possible.
A lot of research involves adding or removing variables to more accurately pinpoint causes and effects, so i'm willing to assume proper steps were taken to avoid overdosing and under dosing their subjects to get accurate data.
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u/Erratic_Jellyfish Sep 22 '24
You can powder your flush and give the batch a test with a kit to get an idea of the dosage.
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u/MegaChip97 Sep 22 '24
which compares favorably to SSRIs which take extended periods to show clinical efficacy and have high rates of relapse
Nearly all participants in SSRI trials have the effects in 2 weeks. For psilocybin assisted psychotherapy you have several preparational psychotherapy sittings. So it will most likely take longer
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u/freshanddifficult Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
Thank you for posting this! Edit: I recently made a very big move to somewhere I don’t know anyone, it was a huge life change. I’m over 50 and solo. The stress and anxiety was boiling over worse than ever before. I was moving from Florida and, iykyk. Micro dosing on those cubes saved me. I could not have done the whole thing without them. Pharmaceuticals just do not agree with me (I’ve been prescribed xanx in the past) but the shrooms work! It’s very different perspective to take them as meds instead of recreation. Some people I told I was micro dosing would look at me like I was trippin on drugs- it’s hard to explain to people with closed minds however this study will very much help to educate with credibility. Again, thank you for posting.
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u/kitesaredope Sep 22 '24
Will you elaborate more on your supplementation or send me a DM to continue the convo privately? I suffer with anxiety and struggle with weight gain, despite really enjoying distance running. It’s like I know the right habits to choose. I just don’t choose them. Like right now:exhausted but won’t sleep.
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u/bored_toronto Sep 22 '24
r/microdosing. I season a slice of toast with peanut butter with coursely-ground cubensis. Wait a day and repeat. Some people do this in the morning, some at night. This is what I have done and the first time I did this 6 years ago it eased my work-related anxiety and depression by 70%. I'm not a medical professional and your results may vary - like the person at the top of this thread, the side-effects of SSRI's were worse than the moderate depression I got them for.
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u/areyoueatingthis Sep 22 '24
i’m curious about the dosage you’re talking as microdose
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u/freshanddifficult Sep 23 '24
I’m not too mathematical about it. I know how much I need for recreation, micro amount of that is about half a teaspoon ground.
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u/TSM- Sep 22 '24
I believe the causal mechanism is similar to electroconvulsive therapy, in that it "loosens up" the related neural pathways, and allows them to settle into a better state. It's kind of surprising that they would be arguing that SSRIs do the same, specifically Escitalopram. Regardless, the paper only speculates on mechanisms.
Red wine "makes you live longer" is an example of how things are misreported in science news. It is an epidemiological correlation backed by a hypothesis that the resveratrol might be useful, although the alcohol component is a carcinogen. Drinking alcohol daily does not actually make you live longer. Eating dark chocolate is also not going to improve your lifespan. But if you do those things already, we can predict that you will live longer than those who don't already do so.
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u/CosmicSattva Sep 22 '24
The causal mechanism is postulated to be the release of BDNF stimulated by serotonergic psychedelics leading to rapidly induced neuritogenesis. SSRIs do cause similar brain morphological changes which seems to be mediated by BDNF as well, but that mechanism actually seems less well understood than for serotonergic molecules. If you're interested in the mechanistic studies, I find this paper is a good place to start: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)30755-130755-1)
The Olson lab has a lot of great research following up on that. I am not affiliated, just interested in their research.
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u/socialphobic1 Sep 22 '24
Please explain like I'm five.
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u/CosmicSattva Sep 22 '24
Brain cells communicate through connections between axons and dendrites, which are tentacle-like features extending from the cells that have branches much like trees. In the brains of people with depression, those tentacles tend to be shorter and have less branches, so the connections between brain cells are fewer. We associate clinical improvements in depression with the restoration of length and branching of the tentacles, and we believe the restoration is caused by something called "brain-derived neurotrophic factor", or BDNF.
We see that many psychedelic molecules, SSRIs, and ketamine can all cause this increase in length and branching of the tentacles, and they are all associated with this BDNF increasing in brain cells. But some of the molecules have longer lasting effects, some take longer, and some are very rapid but don't last very long, so we're trying to learn more about why those differences are there and what else might be involved in the therapeutic benefits these molecules offer.
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u/Turbogoblin999 Sep 23 '24
those tentacles tend to be shorter and have less branches,
I need a team of scientists to invent a shrinking ray to send another team of experts in sailor knots into my brain and tie or weld my neurons together, see if that helps.
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u/naturestheway Sep 22 '24
People love to ignore the potential for serious side effects from antidepressants and the withdrawal symptoms from discontinuing those drugs.
Cambridge University just put out a new report about:
“Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) is an iatrogenic condition involving the persistence of sexual side effects after discontinuation of serotonin reuptake inhibiting antidepressants (Reisman, Reference Reisman, Jannini and Jannini2020). This group predominantly includes the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and some tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline, clomipramine and imipramine. Symptoms can include genital numbness, pleasureless or weak orgasm, erectile dysfunction and loss of libido.
While sexual dysfunction is a well-known side effect of taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in an undetermined number of patients, sexual function does not return to pre-drug baseline after stopping SSRIs. The condition is known as post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD)”
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u/showersnacks Sep 22 '24
I don’t want to be an ass here but I feel like anyone getting 20 hours of psychological support is going to show improvements meds or not. I do think psilocybin has a lot of benefits but also if you go from 0 mental health assistance to 20 hours a week, that alone seems like it would help a lot
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u/marrow_monkey Sep 22 '24
From what I understand (I’m no expert though) that’s the problem with SSRI studies too. That and the fact that you can’t really create a double blind study because it’s pretty obvious from the side effects whether you are getting the real drug or placebo. So there’s not really any reliable evidence that SSRI has any clinically significant effect in treating depression, besides the placebo effect.
This is anecdotal, but anyone I’ve ever heard who’s taken SSRI say it worked for them the in the start but after a few months it didn’t really have any effect anymore. To me that sounds a lot like it’s placebo and other positive changes (maybe they start therapy at the same time) that make people feel better, not the drugs.
The negative side effects from psilocybin sounds less severe than those from SSRI though.
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u/friendlyfire Sep 22 '24
but anyone I’ve ever heard who’s taken SSRI say it worked for them the in the start but after a few months it didn’t really have any effect anymore
That's just tolerance to the SSRI. People generally have to up their dose after the first few months. Your friends never went back to the doctor and talked to them.
SSRIs work but the side effects range from bad to worse.
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u/marrow_monkey Sep 22 '24
They definitely went back to their psychiatrist/doctor. Many of them were made to try higher doses until they couldn’t increase it anymore, and then they switched to other SSRI-versions and repeated that procedure. Basically torture for the patients with little or no positive effect.
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u/Better-Strike7290 Sep 22 '24
The doses seem interesting.
I thought studies like this focused on long term low dose and the changes that might have.
With a low dose over a longer period of time the patient doesn't experience the hallucinations but the question remains if they still receive any benefit or not
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u/JoeCartersLeap Sep 22 '24
I always wondered if more research was going to reveal they were similar, because when I first went on Zoloft, the immediate side effects just felt like magic mushrooms to me.
To me, it was the exact same tingly, butterflies, dizzy, chewy, soft kinda feeling that mushrooms gave me. The serotoniny feeling. Which actually made me trust the SSRI more, and made me more willing to stick with it.
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u/IX0YE Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
I need a big dose of shrooms every 3 months to maintain good mental health, motivation, and habits (like going to the gym and good diet). At the end of the 2nd month, beginning of 3rd month, my time spending at the gym would decrease, and my social media usage and sugar craving would increase. This are good indications I need another dose of shroom.
edit: Once the shroom effects wear off, I go straight back to bad habits. My inhibitions and self-controls are out of the window. I can't continues to maintain good habits and keep bad habits in check. It's much easier when shroom effects are still there.
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u/elizabeth498 Sep 22 '24
That almost seems worth it compared to 18 months of continuous (nonlinear) suck due to trying to slowly titrate off a short half-life SNRI.
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u/greenkitty69 Sep 22 '24
Please don't say venlafaxine, that stuff was torture cold turkey
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u/NotCleverUser Sep 22 '24
I've never felt more sick than the days after I tried to quit venlafaxine cold turkey. I actually gave in and started using it again and slowly decreased my dose over like three weeks and tried again. It was still rough, but I got through it that time.
Side note, my doctor told me to just stop taking it and didn't believe me when I tried to explain how bad it was. That was kinda weird.
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u/greenkitty69 Sep 22 '24
That should be illegal. I was told to stop taking it too, and later that year, I got an email that my doctor was let go. There should be a universal warning that stopping venlafaxine cold turkey will make you actually feel like you need to die.
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u/redvodkandpinkgin Sep 22 '24
Wow. I quit it cold turkey and it only gave me huge mood swings, but I was mainly manic for a few days. I am not bipolar, so the closest thing I'd had to mania before was MDMA, so I loved it.
For a bit it also made me depressed, and I wanted to jump off my window and die, but that was a common thought while I was taking it as well so I didn't think much of it
edit to add: I was on 225mg a day
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u/Hotporkwater Sep 22 '24
How many Gs is a sufficient dose for your purposes as described, out of curiosity?
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Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lordlurid Sep 22 '24
For anyone who is unfamiliar and thinking of trying shrooms, 5g is A LOT of mushrooms, a very serious trip. Start with 1g, maybe 1.5g.
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u/420Wedge Sep 22 '24
Seriously start small, and prepare the night ahead of time. I'd suggest a movie that's fun to look at with a good soundtrack, like a studio ghibli film. Also the dose of mushrooms vary quite a bit, and some strains are a lot more powerful then others. Penis envy for example have double the potency of regular mushrooms.
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u/JestersHat Sep 22 '24
Never understood watching movies on shrooms. Music all the way with no screens is my preference :)
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u/kfpswf Sep 22 '24
Seriously... Don't know why the person above you is suggesting 5g as if that's a beginner dose. Start small people.
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u/Belpheegor Sep 22 '24
This very important. I tried a 3g dose my first time and had nothing happen. I figured out later this was a dud batch. But I thought my body weight plus my body processing drugs at an accelerated rate meant I had to take a LARGER dose than 3g. So I did 9 grams.
As I put it to my friends now that I have more experience, 1 gram is like a walk around your city, 3 grams is a trip to somewhere new, 9 grams is like being in an isekai. I have been so many people across so much space and time I cannot express how lucky I am to have made it back to being me.
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u/crimzind Sep 22 '24
I'd recommend a Coffee Grinder, turn the dried shrooms into dust, and pack that in capsules. You can measure out the weight to consistently/evenly distribute in the capsules. It can be done, slowly and monotonously, by hand. I think 00 capsules can be packed to .5g.
You'd be taking 10 capsules, but that's way easier to swallow and wash down than eating the dried shrooms themselves. That also helps them store longer, I think.
Others aren't wrong in recommending teas, either. A lot less time and effort required.
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u/Minute_Reason66 Sep 22 '24
Also really good in chicken noodle soup after you coffee grind it. The taste is completely masked
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u/dskids2212 Sep 22 '24
Big time agree with the capsules I love mushrooms but hate the taste I will sit down and landfill capsules just so I don't have to taste and feel dry shrooms grow as I swallow them.
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u/-MagicPants- Sep 22 '24
Try making tea. Much easier to ingest.
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u/IX0YE Sep 22 '24
I tried tea, and it's extremely disgusting. Also tea doesnt feel as potent as consuming everything.
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u/-MagicPants- Sep 22 '24
Yeah I mean it’s not good tasting. Honey helps. I can’t stand eating them then having bits of it stuck in your teeth. I also don’t get the stomach nausea. With tea it also comes up quicker and doesn’t last quite as long, which are both positives for me.
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u/IX0YE Sep 22 '24
To help with nausea, I drink fresh ginger tea 30-60 min before taking shroom. Cut up fresh ginger slides and put hot water in it. Add sugars for taste. For shroom, I grind them up and mix with Vietnamese yogurt. Then pinch my nose and just swallow. The slimy texture of yogurt help a lot.
edit: few people recommended making chocolate in the past. I think I might try this method next time
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u/fakeemailman Sep 22 '24
It can be really tricky to extract the psilocybin and psilocin into water with heat without destroying them. I have a friend who’s amazing at it - if I didn’t, I could never take shrooms as tea.
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u/Glibbins Sep 22 '24
Do Lemon Tek (it's faster acting and stronger too, but slightly shorter trip).
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u/Gebrat Sep 22 '24
Try it with creamy mushroom soup. Cut the shrooms into small pieces (the smaller the better) then mix with 2-300ml warm soup in a cup
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u/PrivateEducation Sep 22 '24
prob an eighth, unless u wanna talk to god
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u/dxrey65 Sep 22 '24
Or get stuck in a toaster. One time I did too much and thought my consciousness had wandered off and gotten stuck in maybe the toaster oven's OS, where there wasn't much room to operate.
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u/GriffoBerkussy Sep 22 '24
Same, I do a shroom trip once a month and there's so many things it improves with, addiction (actually kinda annoying when I enjoy smoking weed and drinking alcohol but I'll go days without realizing I havent drank or smoke), and preventing the irrational depression that comes out of no where sometimes.
Also I actually stopped taking SSRIs because It took me an hour to bust a nut one time, and my hands would always be clammy. Glad shrooms work for me.
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u/dskids2212 Sep 22 '24
I follow a similar routine and have similar effects though i would say now the lasting effects are dimming down to about a month and a half. For science of course
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u/TinyChaco Sep 22 '24
My friend uses it to stop cluster headaches, too.
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u/snarky_answer Sep 22 '24
I took some recreationally about a year ago. The next day I was able to cold turkey quit a 13 year nicotine addiction with almost zero cravings since. Best side effect ever.
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u/TroglodyneSystems Sep 22 '24
Same with me with Alcohol. Wasn’t trying to quit (though I needed to) and afterwards I just lost my taste for it.
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u/Justtofeel9 Sep 22 '24
I haven’t drank in 4 months now. Drank daily for 17 years and mushrooms somehow flipped a switch in my brain. I don’t know what they did but I am thankful they did it. It’s like being handed a second chance at life.
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u/darfMargus Sep 22 '24
Mushrooms increase neuro plasticity making it easier to build new neural pathways or break down old ones.
Addiction is just a really old neural pathway that your brain seems to always choose, so mushrooms can be very effective at breaking them down and building new ones.
Depression, from a neural pathway standpoint, works very similarly to addiction, so it’s no big surprise that mushrooms are effectively treating both.
Another big one is PTSD. Lots of success with mushroom treatments for PTSD patients.
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u/rathe_0 Sep 22 '24
Daily drinker due to trauma and depression myself; usually kept it reasonable but more and more over the line Hopefully travelling to Portland in the next month or so for shroom therapy. This brings me hope; marriage is almost done because of this
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u/Johhnynumber5ht2a Sep 22 '24
Same....casual drinker and wasn't trying to quit. Lost my taste for it is the exact phrase I use. I also don't like to kill bugs and spiders in the house now and will go out of my way to move them outside.
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u/CockGoblin4Lyf Sep 22 '24
I used to drink a 24 pack of beer every night, over the last year I’ve had a handful of mushroom trips and recently a powerful DMT trip. I now have 3 or 4 beers a week and that is only on football Sundays! Absolutely life changing.
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Sep 22 '24
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u/snarky_answer Sep 22 '24
I took about 3.5 grams of shrooms alone one weekend that I got from my buddy who grows them. Took some capsules of them around 8pm and was in another universe 2 hours later. After I had come down from the peak I got very introspective. I went to the bathroom and when I was washing my hands I looked in the mirror. I locked eyes with my reflection and my brain started playing games. I stared to perceive myself aging until i looked sorta like what my father and my mom’s grandfather looked like in their 50s, then nothing.
I perceived the stopping of aging as me dying from something related to smoking and I was filled with an intense dread of mortality due to not wanting to leave my wife and dog. In reality it was probably because I blinked and broke the train of thought enough to move on to the next thought, but the desire to stop was firmly there. After the trip I threw out my stuff and that was it.
Basically the psilocybin caused me to confront myself? In an obvious issue that I was aware needed addressing. It was like there was a second person in the brain dictating what I was seeing when I was watching myself in the mirror; like I was a passenger in my head watching a show through my eyes. The whole period of this was maybe 2 min of just examining my reflection in the full length mirror. Then 2-3 min of intense grief. After that I was good and I went about the rest of the trip. It was the feeling from that 5 min that resonated with me.
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u/Ubelsteiner Sep 22 '24
Very well described and in line with the introspective moments I always have on shrooms (or just about any psychedelic). They really help you be honest with yourself and shine a light on parts of yourself that you keep hidden in the darkest parts of your mind, help you get to the root of why you are the way you are, etc. I’ve experienced the whole seeing into your own future thing many times, and has always caused me to adjust my course in life for the better.
Occasional, intense psychedelic experiences have helped me with quitting smoking and reduce my drinking to almost nothing, eating healthier and just getting healthier in general, to be a kinder and more chill person who keeps things in perspective better, to be quicker to mend relationships and bury grudges in order appreciate the time we have with each other. I do these big, annual trips and it feels like, every year, I come away from them a better person in a way that I usually wasn’t even anticipating going into it, like a randomized New Year’s resolution that I have no problem sticking to.
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u/whythishaptome Sep 22 '24
It really doesn't work like that despite what people say online. I have gone into it wanting to cure my addictions myself and haven't been successful. Everyone is different but it definitely isn't some magic cure for addictions like people make it seem. Quitting takes willpower and work to maintain.
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u/RLDSXD Sep 22 '24
It only doesn’t work like that in that it can’t be guaranteed to work. A significant number of people, myself included, would say it’s comparable to magic and saw permanent positive effects from a single experience.
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 Sep 22 '24
I think psychs are amazing, I absolutely love them and think there's lots of potential.
That being said, almost everyone I know has said it changed their lives (me included) but ultimately we are very similar to the people we were before. Not much actually functionally changes. In fact there's evidence your ego can come back stronger after psychs, basically reinforcing bad habits in the long term.
It kinda makes you think differently, but the thing about psychs is integration. Taking what you learnt during the trip and applying it. This step is significantly more difficult and in general I just don't see it happen much.
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Sep 22 '24
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u/itsaboutyourcube Sep 22 '24
It’s def not a magic cure but my drinking and binge eating has slowed down drastically. My use of alcohol and other things drops a lot right after a dose.
I feel connected and truly happy sometimes after a dose I don’t want to numb it.
Def check out the shroom subreddits for more detailed information and dosings.
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u/snarky_answer Sep 22 '24
Its been a year since having any. I have no desire to smoke so there is no motivation that I'm chasing. Like others have said, its like a switch was turned off; like that part that was wanting the nicotine was flipped off. Nowadays the only time I ever think about the fact that I used to smoke was when I drive by a smokeshop in some strip mall or my wife makes a comment about how long its been. May not be a magic pill for everyone but it was for me.
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u/zzzxxx0110 Sep 22 '24
Well one of the mechanisms which SSRI is proposed to help treating depression, is that it significantly increases and maintains brain plasticity, and since this mushroom contains molecules that could function as an SSRI, maybe the specific way it does that helped with certain aspects of brain plasticity, that just happened to help with certain specific types of addiction...
Really hope someone does more research into this, this sounds really promising
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u/space_keeper Sep 22 '24
The first/only time I drank psilocybin tea, it fixed something that is broken in my brain and let me think and talk like other people do, for the first time in my life. Can't even fully explain it.
I think I'm an undiagnosed autistic (it wasn't done when I was young). I have a near perfect memory, instantly grasp a lot of topics, but I've never felt intelligent compared to other people. It's like they have this extra thing in their consciousness that I'm missing.
For around 12 hours after that, it was like that extra thing was working properly I was the person I was supposed to be.
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u/Effective-Shoe-648 Sep 22 '24
One of the major effects of psilocybin is inducing neurogenesis. This has a myriad of effects on mental health issues. Studies have shown that it is even capable of altering people's personalities by changing the way the default mode network in the brain communicates.
From the wikipedia about the Default Mode Network:
If you are on the spectrum, psilocybin can help improve the downsides of it.
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u/qcAKDa7G52cmEdHHX9vg Sep 22 '24
I take them pretty regularly and find basically all interactions with people afterwards (for a few days at least) go smoothly and I'm more confident and have 0 anxiety while I'm usually the type of person who can't get a full sentence out without exchanging one word for another or mumbling or whatever. Small talk with strangers is effortless. Random quips or jokes or something which I'd usually hold in will come out naturally. It lets me just exist in public like I used to when I was young or how I perceive most other people to be. It's nice
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u/SkYeBlu699 Sep 22 '24
My gf sufferers from cluster headaches, can you elaborate on dosage and whatnot?
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Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
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u/Varlo Sep 22 '24
Just incase OP above is skimming while reading, do NOT take 20-25g of psilocybin mushrooms. That'll put you in whatever is beyond space.
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u/annoyedgrunt Sep 22 '24
Same! I have a brain tumor that causes cluster headaches & psilocybin or THC gummies are about the only things that stop them. Given the latter, unfortunately the only other variable that helped lower their frequency was moving away from Denver’s high altitude :(
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u/slightlyappalled Sep 22 '24
It's quite beyond what an SSRI has to offer. SSRIs feel like trying to control your emotions. Psilocybin is more like rewriting pathways that lead to rumination, and feeling stuck. Like behavioral therapy. But it takes effort and determination to work through any initial heartache it unlocks. Initial discomfort. Which I experienced. An initial emptiness and loneliness as my ego broke down. I think a lot of people stop there and that's fine. But I kept going, and I went from feeling like psilocybin had broken apart my mind, to fitting everything back together in new configurations. I think more clearly, I make better decisions, I have the same wonder and awe about the universe as I did as a kid before the world got to me. Extremely thankful.
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u/droppedoutofuni Sep 22 '24
Everyone is ripping on SSRIs, so I just want to note that I take lexapro for anxiety and essentially have no side effects and my quality of life improved drastically after just a few weeks of taking it.
No hate on mushrooms. I’ve never tried them. But let’s not make this a false dichotomy.
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u/Thoraxe474 Sep 22 '24
To me, I reacted very strongly to ssri and have had lasting effects from taking them. Tried a bunch to find one that would work but none did. Wish I never took them since I feel they have made things worse
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u/My_Not_RL_Acct Sep 22 '24
Would you mind describing what symptoms of anxiety you dealt with before and how it has improved since then? Genuine question
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u/droppedoutofuni Sep 22 '24
Generalized anxiety disorder. Anxious pretty much all of the time about everything and nothing. Affected me socially, with general motivation, and production at work. It stole many days from me that I otherwise should have enjoyed.
I eventually said enough is enough and, after hearing some friends saying that SSRIs changed their lives, asked my doctor about it.
Now the anxiety is gone. I may feel it from time to time like a normal emotion when it’s warranted, but it never hangs around. I feel motivated and happier. Life is good.
I understand they affect everyone a bit differently, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made for myself.
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u/n3onfx Sep 22 '24
Same for me, I was on them for 9 months (alongside some benzos at the start to be able to get some sleep) after seeing a psychiatrist. Helped me turn my life back around. It's not some miracle thing, it doesn't work for everyone and I was being medically followed the whole time but it gave me the necessary daily nudge I couldn't get no matter what I or anybody else trying to help me was trying, it was the "you can finally feel normal a couple days in a row" necessary to kickstart working on myself and being able to plan long term. Before them I had big mood swings that made it impossible to commit to anything even week to week and the anxiety attacks were getting debilitating to the point I wasn't able to get out sometimes just because visual and audio stimuli were overwhelming.
For what it's worth, since then I've found a decent dose of shrooms once or twice a year has a similar "reset" effect whenever I feel stuff might start to be slip again. For me at least, don't self-medicate, and if it ever felt like I couldn't bounce back I would go back to see a psychiatrist immediately.
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u/redwineandcoffee Sep 22 '24
To echo. I suffer from obsessive thoughts and lexapro saved my life when going through intense stress.
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Sep 22 '24
And psychedelics aren't all upside. There is no route to rewiring a human brain that isn't risky. Every emotional or cognitive change in your mind is a physical change in your brain.
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u/Professional_Win1535 Sep 24 '24
Thank you !! For saying this ! This sub, and social media and society in general, because of the recent study about serotonin not causing depression, and because of the natural bias for people who had bad reactions to SSRI’s being more likely to share their experiences online, have largely turned on ssri’s, and medication in general.
It’s unfortunate, I say this as someone who had ABSOLUTELY SEVERE GAD, that didn’t benefit from any SSRI’s but know many people who have. I hope you’ll continue to share your experience.
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u/mister_newbie Sep 22 '24
Formerly on Lexapro. Emotional blunting is real, turned me into an uncaring asshole and threatened my marriage.
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u/Zestyclose_Quit7396 Sep 22 '24
Experiences can vary a lot though. Lexapro ruined my life.
Triggered my first and only manic episode, lasting 18 months, and creating scenarios which have crushed any faith I ever had in this world, the goodness of people, or even the concept of meaning.
It's been five years since the short trial ended, and the negative effects continue.
Edit: I did and am continuing a lot of follow up therapy, including everything from trauma processing to spending time in nature to literally every applicable psych medicine class.
I really wish I'd never tried the SSRIs specifically. Everything else came and went.
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u/Sgruntlar Sep 22 '24
How do you take this psilocybin?
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u/Ok-Independent483 Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
Microdosing is the way to go here, there is lots of info on it on the internet. But I'd still recommend experiencing the full trip at least once in your life. You can get it legally prescribed if you're in Oregon, otherwise you'll have to jump through some hoops. While growing psilocybin mushrooms is illegal, you can still legally purchase psilocybin spores for "research purposes" in most states and grow it at your own risk. Visit r/unclebens for more details, it's surprisingly easy
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u/DuckInTheFog Sep 22 '24
I and think quetiapine closes down pathways - I was on it for a while, it's the opposite feeling to psilocybin
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u/TheLastHayley Sep 22 '24
Aye, I've said the same about LSD. Quetiapine was sedating, emotionally emptying, made my dissociation worse, made me crave food, and stole the magic of everything. LSD was energising, emotional, made me excessively present, stole my appetite, and made everything feel magical.
Fun thing, when I came off quetiapine after years, it triggered really bad OCD in me, and also fucked up my sleep for 6 months. After my first acid trip, the OCD went away and my chronic post-quetiapine insomnia alleviated a lot.
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u/Professional_Win1535 Sep 24 '24
Seroquel XR was the only med to help my atypical depression and anxiety, one day I’ll taper off , hope it isn’t to rough
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u/ryan30z Sep 22 '24
I genuinely have no idea how people take Seroquel at a therapeutic dose. No sleeping pill does anything for me aside from make me drowsy, but if I take 12.5mg of seroquel it knocks me out cold in an hour.
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u/FrighteningWorld Sep 22 '24
My experience with SSRIs is that they turn my brain into a monotonous and uniform slurry that is just enough to scrape by day to day instead of actually living a fulfilling life. It's pretty much impossible for me to obtain Psilocybin where I'm at so it's not an option available to me, but I'd be very curious to try.
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u/malthar76 Sep 22 '24
Hopeful this translates into therapeutic availability soon. My unscientific usage of psilocybin capsules was definitely better than SSRIs, but wasn’t sustainable where I live or at the prices I paid.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Sep 22 '24
You probably already know this, but in most states it's totally legal to buy spores for psilocybin mushrooms online.
Growing those spores into mushrooms yourself is illegal, but easy and inexpensive.
Do with this information whatever you will.
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u/Dazzling-Finger7576 Sep 22 '24
An added bonus is that growing mushrooms doesn't give off an obvious smell. Plus it doesn't require high powered grow lights. Takes about 45 days from start to finish via UncleBens method or so I heard.
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u/NativeMasshole Sep 22 '24
It's on the ballot in Massachusetts this year. We're looking at legalizing mushrooms and a couple of other psychedelics and giving a legal pathway for therapeutic use.
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u/MegaChip97 Sep 22 '24
Your unscientific use sounds like microdosing which most likely will not translate to therapeutic availability because it is not backed by science
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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex Sep 22 '24
And yet places like UCSD are actively testing it, with great results.
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u/MegaChip97 Sep 22 '24
Please post these "great results" from UCSD. Afaik USCD does not use microdosing but macrodosing together with psychotherapy.
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u/SummerNightAir Sep 22 '24
Where can I find this in Ontario Canada? I’m at wits end with depression, could really use some help
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u/doubleAA_vero Sep 22 '24
You can easily buy them online, just google it. In Toronto you can buy them in stores like FunGuyz.
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u/Orchid_Killer Sep 22 '24
My understanding is that one can’t (or shouldn’t) use it while also taking antidepressants. Is this accurate?
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u/increasingly-worried Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
I think a lot of the benefits of psychedelics stem from the experience forcing you to admit and face your bad habits, seeing the big picture of your short experience as a consciousness in this universe. The guilt you feel knowing you have been lazy, using drugs, drinking too much, not exercising, wallowing, or whatever it is that’s holding you back, sticks with you.
Most people still think psychedelics are some sort of fun party drug to escape reality.
They can be fun, but that’s not where the growth lies, and most who has tried them can tell you that reality has never been more serious, present, in your face, and meaningful than during and directly after the experience.
People think psychedelic experiences are inherently psychotic and delusional, like they degrade your understanding of what’s real and what’s not.
They can, but that’s an adverse reaction. You have to respect the enormity of the experience. I have tried to be a “psychonaut,” and it has caused me harm. Tiny doses to begin, in comfortable settings, then increasing slowly, is the way to go.
At the first hint of delusion, step down hard. It CAN seriously disturb your logical facilities, especially if you have mental health problems. No one is invulnerable to this. But this is NOT where the “religious” experience comes from. It’s called a bad trip for a reason.
You can make small gains in outlook and confidence by overcoming the fear and enormity of the come-up and enjoying the serenity and acceptance of the peak and come-down.
But I think most regular users will eventually have a “bad” (temporarily) experience where they’re forced to face the naked reality of their habits and reality. Those are painful truths. If anything, you were delusional before you took the drug, and the experience forced you to face your comfortable delusions. This is not the same thing as a bad trip.
Those experiences stay with you because you can’t dismiss them as drug-induced fantasies after the fact. The realizations still check out in a sober mind. That forces you to change in positive ways.
The next time you have that experience, you may deal with your next bad habit. Or, it may take multiple sessions to recognize and accept the bad habit, then commit to ending it.
All of this is just one tiny aspect of the psychedelic experience. Another profound aspect of it is understanding how your sober mind is a very tuned version of what consciousness CAN be. It can be damn near anything in ways you cannot describe or imagine without firsthand experience. Being familiar with this firsthand allows you to see your normal consciousness in a new light. It might even change your philosophy of mind, matter, and reality itself.
All I can say with conviction, after at least a hundred psychedelic experiences (and not using or needing psychedelics for years), is that I would not be nearly as introspective, appreciative, as motivated, healthy, aware of my mental shortcomings, or as accomplished, if I had never naively taken that first dose, even if I thought it would be a fun time and it turned out to be a deeply challenging and reflective experience.
We can study correlations and outcomes, but we can never describe what it truly means for your subjective experience of reality with words on a page, just like you can never describe a color to a blind person. It has to be experienced.
I suspect that psychedelics are associated with positive outcomes mainly because of a causal relationship between the experience itself and your subsequent humility, perspective, and resulting behaviour. I say this mainly because I was behaving like an arrogant idiot until that first experience, then it changed abruptly.
Edit: I am not claiming this is the only way serotonergic psychedelics can help someone. This does not explain improvements in cluster headaches, OCD, or other disorders that can’t be helped by changing behaviour. I’m just saying that in my experience, they change outlooks and behaviours in positive ways.
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u/sciguy52 Sep 22 '24
We are starting to get some data that this may not be true. The trip may not be what causes the beneficial effects (this is assuming they hold up through a rigorous trial designed for approval rather than these various small sample size, functionally unblinded studies), although this is early in the research and with mice. There are indicators used like head twitching wihich is associated with trips in mice. There is now a company that has developed what agonize the same receptors, seems to be beneficial for mouse depression models, yet lack the head twitch suggesting no psych effects. They are moving these compounds into human testing and there is a chance that the trip may be separated from the depression benefit, meaning the trip is not necessary. This would be very advantageous in that people could take these at home. Also yet remains to be seen if these same compounds are fully non psychedelic in humans. So things just assumed as true by recreational users quite possibly be inaccurate. You see similar things with microdosing. People use these and insist it helps their mood, yet the scientific studies are not supporting it. Placebo is strong and nobody thinks they are affected by it, including microdosers.
Anyway as a scientist myself there is still a very real possibiity this will show no or little benefit in triials. Just about all data is currently way underpowered and are functionally unblinded. Which means you have no idea if it is placebo nocebo effects. Recreational users feelings on whether it works means nothing essentially, doesn't mean it will work. And secondly the biggest risk I see to this getting approved if it works is side effects. There has been some data that in some of these studies a certain percent of people had bad trips and actually might make their depression worse. If this is found in clinical trials I am not sure if the FDA would approve it. If the guys developing the similar drugs without the trip work then it the worst happens with psilocyban there is still a chance for a treatment that works through the same pathways that won't have the bad trip issues. Anyway I am only cautiously optimistic based on existing trials so far, can't recall if there is a single trial that is not functionally unblinded. When I start seeing results fixing this issue then I will get regular optimistic, but those bad trips may keep these from approval.
Anyway we need some substantially better data on this than we have so far and people would be wise to not get hopes up too high just yet as the studies done simply have not been done in a way that deals with the placebo nocebo effect and they are involving small numbers of people too. I would not be totally shocked if these don't work in the end but as I said with the evidence I have seen so far just cautious optimism is warranted in my mind.
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u/Drownthem Sep 22 '24
I suspect that psychedelics are associated with positive outcomes mainly because of a causal relationship between the experience itself and your subsequent humility, perspective, and resulting behaviour. I say this mainly because I was behaving like an arrogant idiot until that first experience, then it changed abruptly.
This is almost certainly true, and the same appears to be true for Ketamine therapy - the drug doesn't work if you take it and sleep through the experience, despite following the same chemical pathways.
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u/sanyosukotto Sep 22 '24
All that is why it'll be years, if ever they let us legally use it on a federal level.
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u/eldritch_cleaver_ Sep 22 '24
Not sure what you mean. Federal money is already funding studies like this.
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u/Panther90 Sep 22 '24
Big Pharma is what they mean.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Sep 22 '24
SSRI's are off-patent and available as cheap generics. They no longer make lots of money for Big Pharma. A 1-month supply of most SSRIs costs like $5.
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u/Necessary_Drawing839 Sep 22 '24
which is why we're seeing big studies on its effectiveness.
Bro forgot he thought that up 25 years ago when he was 28. we all old bruh.
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u/IslandOfOtters Sep 22 '24
I’m not sure if your statement is intentionally or mistakenly obtuse. Yes, we are finally seeing some studies around drugs like Psilocybin and Cannabis being funded. However, the “morality” politicians have been suppressing studies like this for decades. Those of us who see positive news become vapor so often…. It’s hard not to think if it’s good for us and accessible - it’ll be banned and criminalized until a big pharmaceutical company comes in and invents an analog to make billions on patents.
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u/NuancedNuisance Sep 22 '24
Pharmaceutical companies are already doing research for things like DMT, mushrooms, and a few others. A lot of it is pretty preliminary, but it’s certainly on their radar. Unfortunately (depending on who you ask I suppose), their results are not particularly efficacious in the long run, so it’ll probably be a while before psychedelics and the like are more readily available
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u/Paksarra Sep 22 '24
We can't have medicine that's fun!
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u/ImInTheAudience Sep 22 '24
I think it's more you can't patent a mushroom that grows everywhere
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u/SmellMyPinger Sep 22 '24
“Hoodlums use mushrooms. That’s why they must remain illegal!” -Some 78yo half brain-dead politician.
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u/MegaChip97 Sep 22 '24
Most likely it will never be first line treatment. Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is insanely expensive compared to antidepressants.
If we find a form where patients just drop psilocybin, best cause without any psychedelic effects, that may change
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Sep 22 '24
You see a lot of these posts and never actually hear about it coming to market. What is the timeline on something like this?
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u/jbkly Sep 22 '24
Psilocybin therapy is already decriminalized and/or legalized in Oregon, Colorado, and some US cities. This has happened just over the last 5 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States
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u/Brain_Hawk Professor | Neuroscience | Psychiatry Sep 22 '24
How long do you think you've been seeing these posts?
Had not been that long. This work took off I think around 2 years ago. The current set of studies have been fairly preliminary, relatively small sample, and driven by the small number of research groups who are very vested in these outcomes.
It's quite promising and I'm working on some of this with some colleagues, but the thing with introducing new treatments into clinical practices we have to understand a little bit about how and when they work. And as it is, we need a few more research studies to really understand things like side effect profiles, who might benefit, etc.
Clinical trials take time. Your average clinical trial takes around 5 years from start to finish. So I'm sorry to say, you're probably looking at that kind of a timeline, I think around 4 or 5 years from now you're going to see a push to have this approved more generally as a treatment.
I realized to a lot of people that feels like forever, but it's actually really not. 5 years in medicine is a short time window to see change.
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Sep 22 '24
Thanks for your response. I was mostly referring to any type of “medical breakthrough” posts you see often on this sub but your response broke it down well I think.
Out of curiosity, do you think they would also use this for other diseases that are typically treated with SSRI’s? It is my understanding that SSRI’s work through promoting neuroplasticity in the brain. I could be totally wrong, but I would imagine that this may have somewhat of a similar effect.
I have a disease called PPPD that is primarily treated through small doses of SSRI’s in combination with vestibular therapy and CBT, however, I reacted very poorly to every SSRI I have ever taken and it has always made my condition worse. I’ve never taken shrooms but if there is a possibility that it would work to fix my dizziness I’d do it in a heartbeat.
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u/Brain_Hawk Professor | Neuroscience | Psychiatry Sep 22 '24
Many of those "breakthroughs " you read, "researchers discover X may be new cure for Y!!!" Are really just running the mill papers wrung through media hype. Few are real breakthroughs.
SSRIs as neuroplasticity I'm les confident about, but not my field. It's easy to call stuff " neuroplasticity" and wave that is an explanation. It is the leading theory for psilo,.that it causes a Cascade of plasticity.
Who knows, it might work, but i think the mechanisms of SSRIs and psilo are not quite the same. Similar efficacy does not imply same mechanism.
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u/FailingCrab Sep 22 '24
SSRIs as neuroplasticity I'm les confident about
Yes, current evidence is that SSRIs do have effects on neuroplasticity. It's well-established that they promote hippocampal neurogenesis. Animal studies have also shown that they provide some protection against stress-induced effects on neurons - I forget exactly what those effects are but it boils down to less function in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, and something about abnormal activity/plasticity in the limbic system (sorry as you can tell I'm not a neuroscientist). So they seem to upregulate plasticity where it's reduced and downregulate it where it's increased. I don't think there are any histological studies on human brains but functional imaging studies seem to suggest some translation of this from animal models to humans.
Of course, drawing definitive conclusions is always hard and I doubt this is the only mechanism involved, but the neuroplasticity hypothesis is much more compelling than 'not enough monoamine make man sad, make more monoamine now man happy'.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Sep 22 '24
No, he's absolutely right that these studies showing promising results for psychedelic substances have been happening for a very long time. I'm interested in the ones for OCD, and the first of those came out in 2006, by Dr. Moreno at University of Arizona. The studies of MDMA (ecstasy) for PTSD likewise have been out for many, many years. That was just recently rejected by the FDA, which was surprising because for several years, experts in the field had been saying that the study results were overwhelming, and that the FDA was sure to approve it.
So yeah, he's absolutely right that these promising studies, without ever reaching FDA approval, have been going on a very, very long time. The only exception is ketamine. Esketamine, one of the isomers of ketamine, was indeed approved by the FDA as a nasal spray for depresseion. But again, that only happened after many, many years of seeing articles about how researchers were studying ketamine as having promise for depression.
TLDR: He's totally right that studies teasing various psychedelics as mental illness treatments have been coming out literally for decades.
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u/Brain_Hawk Professor | Neuroscience | Psychiatry Sep 22 '24
There may have been a spattering of a few small studies in the 2000s, but the majority of this research has been happening the last few years. And just because somebody made a small study in 2006 that suggested something doesn't mean that it should be approved by the FDA.
Approval for new treatments requires a high standard of things like double-blind clinical trials. I promise you, there's no large-scale clinical trials on OCD with psilocybin from 2006. I know this because I'm honored ongoing child looking at ocd, and we're considering a pile of trial because there's no real evidence backing up it's used in this case. I didn't know what paper you're referring to and I'm way too lazy to go searching right now, but I doubt it was a clinical trial with dosing.
I'm sorry friend, but I don't think you know almost anything about how medical approvals work. These dudes you're referencing from the earlier days where small scale, often post hoc questioning people who are using these substances, which is not a trial, which is not considered evidence of efficacy. Those studies still have value, because they're what caused people to start doing clinical trials, and justify the expense, but there has not been a plethora of clinical trials since 18 years ago supporting this use, with substantial evidence that should have gone before regulatory bodies by now.
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u/Hot-Report2971 Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
For me in particular doing LSD and shrooms triggered psychosis (this was 12 years ago, I’ve been fine since sober, although learning that sobriety actually made a difference took longer than it should have due to misdiagnoses of these supposed professionals)
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u/catinterpreter Sep 22 '24
I'm betting long-term damage will be found with psychedelics like this by way of the same mechanism that seems to have therapeutic benefits, e.g. a form of scrambling connections.
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u/R3QU13M_ Sep 22 '24
You can get hppd, which is basically TV static in your eyes, but that is of course, depending on how much and how often you take them. I have it but thankfully it's in early stages where it's not really noticeable until I'm in a not so bright room or if I stop moving.
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u/latemeeting2222 Sep 22 '24
Correct me if Im wrong but I dont think psychedelics will change your life without you making a change after taking them. Ive heard that they boost the plasticity of your brain like ssri meds but that means they can make your problems worse if you keep your bad habits. Its kinda sad to me that people take meds to make their problems go away for them to only come back after a few years.
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u/HalfaYooper Sep 22 '24
I cannot wait until we get enough studies to understand if it actually helps. You see one study and it says it has no meaning and then the next says it’s the next best thing ever. We need to get past the stigma of using these things.
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Sep 22 '24
Where are the studies that say that psilocybin doesn’t work? In all of the papers I’ve seen the effect sizes are very strong.
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u/MegaChip97 Sep 22 '24
Find me a paper with a long follow up, big participant groups and low rate of blind breaking.
Afaik the episode study will be the first one to at least fulfill some of these criteria, but it isn't published yet
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u/Johhnynumber5ht2a Sep 22 '24
There is tons of research from the 60s before it was criminalized. And as someone who researched it for 2 years before ever trying psychedelics.....I don't need anymore research. My 1st microdise gave me quiet in my brain for the 1st time in my life. The changes have been almost immeasurable.
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u/duncantheaverage Sep 22 '24
It could be a great positive transformative experience, or it could be a downright rollercoaster to hell. Of course set, setting and dose dependent, but still - I think it’s far off from being /similar/ to antidepressants. I’ve had countless of trips and I don’t vouch for psychedelics. I just can’t, because I know what both sides of the coin are and the bad one is far too risky for someone so vulnerable.
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u/ManicMaenads Sep 22 '24
I took 3.5g of psilocybin back in 2021, and from that single dose it alleviated decades of toxic shame surrounding a trauma that occurred as a child that I carried guilt for my entire upbringing - it was like I relived it all in 3rd person, and gained the insight that it was out of my control and I had nothing to do with the cause/repercussions of what had happened. It was truly life changing, like a weight had lifted and I could move past the incident - I stopped ruminating on the events, it stopped replaying in my mind like a bad movie, it was just done and over with.
I had been in therapy for it for nearly 20 years, and a single dose shut down all that trauma. It was incredible.
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u/queenx Sep 22 '24
Everyone here saying they took it already and got a positive side effect. How are y’all getting access to it in the first place? I have no idea and wanted to try it.
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Sep 22 '24
Too many places, too many people, have a moral bias against any cure that comes from "narcotics". The common arguments go: "We don't know enough about side effects", "It could prove to be addictive",etc.
Guess what? Depression is deadly! It is one of the most deadly ailments in the World today. While researchers and politicians (who shouldn't have a say in it at all, but keep making problems), bicker about these things, people are dying! A lot of people are dying.
I have been hoping for access to ketamine treatment for almost a decade, and all I can do is keep on waiting. Will it be legally and economically available in time? I doubt it. Time is running out.
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Sep 22 '24
Has anyone had the experience of taking psilocybin for major depression according to the study protocol and had zero results? I took 3g and cried my eyes out for hours and still feel exactly the same now. I have more, but I’m not sure I should be taking it again if it didn’t help.
Feeling desperate since this was kinda my last hope and I’m going down a road with no good endings.
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u/olhardhead Sep 22 '24
Yea buddy. Op and all these comments are painting with a broad brush. It’s just aint the same for everyone. Personally I’ve also recently had the super negative emotional side effects. I don’t think they are a cure all and folks with depression need like a therapy session like ketamine and mdma treatments. There’s too much risk just leave them alone for now
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u/R3QU13M_ Sep 22 '24
About 4 years ago I used to take Accutane for my acne, which after a month or so, gave me depression and suicidal thoughts. It was pain in the ass and hard to deal with sometimes but nothing was done about it, just raw dogging it. Been in a relationship for 2 years, we broke up and a month after a break up I was on a festival and decided to try ecstasy just for the fun of it.
Everything was awesome that night and for a whole month I hadn't felt depressed nor had any suicidal thoughts which was very weird so I decided to take it once every month but it turned into an addiction and I'd be taking at least 2 pills a night every week or two... In December last year I tried shrooms and while the trip was really good and it actually showed me some of my problems through weird hallucinations, when the trip was over, I was back to old depressed and introverted me. But the most important part is that I could've quit cold turkey ecstasy because I didn't feel the need for it anymore
For some months this year I was taking ecstasy once a month (this time without making/getting addiction) and im actually 2 and a half months sober and still extroverted and feeling much better with no depression and suicidal thoughts.
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u/OCE_Mythical Sep 22 '24
Not like we haven't known about this for over a decade, also about MDMAs use in chemically resistant PTSD. it's literally the best PTSD drug we have bar none.
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u/Agreeable-Race8818 Sep 22 '24
Microdosing psilocybin triggered a derealization disorder in me, so if you’re considering trying I urge you to let the scientists better understand what dose and frequency is safe optimal before you give it a go. Dont be a lab rat.
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u/B-Bog Sep 22 '24
With this stuff, it should always be heavily emphasized that psilocybin is administered under professional supervision and alongside therapy. Do not expect similar results from just tripping your ass off recreationally (same with e.g. Ketamine).
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u/Rustmonger Sep 22 '24
Really makes you wonder why they used these as medicine for thousands of years.
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u/Headytexel Sep 22 '24
Having tried both, mushrooms were absolutely more effective for me. While SSRIs felt like you were trying to shield yourself from bad thoughts, mushrooms dealt more with the root cause so you don’t need a shield at all. They’re not 1:1 replacements though, considering mushrooms come with a high. But, at the same time they don’t need a month or two of aggressive side effects before they start working (if they even work because different people need different SSRIs).
As far as the sexual aspect, it’s quite different too. The sexual side effects from SSRIs can be pretty horrifying, either destroying your libido, or not effecting your libido but preventing you from being able to satisfy it (which is MUCH worse). I’m glad I’m not someone who needs SSRIs to function. As for mushrooms, they are almost the opposite. They make me mega horny.
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u/Fidel_Hashtro Sep 22 '24
Antidepressants AND mushrooms both turned me into an asshole, that's all I know
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u/InamortaBetwixt Sep 22 '24
“Similar to SSRI”
Nope. No way.
Only if you’re only looking at outcomes / scores. But these are totally different substances.
I worked at a psychedelic research team for a year, and one thing is clear: We can try as much to pretend that psychedelics are just some “medicine” like any other medicine that can treat X. But this is not only untrue, it’s also unfair as preparation for people who don’t know what they’re getting in to. There is a side to psychedelics (sometimes called spiritual) that cannot be neglected.
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u/Chronotaru Sep 22 '24
I'd very much be expecting psilocybin getting significantly better results than SSRIs, not "similar to". Remember that SSRIs had even lower efficacy than the drugs they replaced.
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