Author Topic: Mustachians and Psychedelics  (Read 11774 times)

Telecaster

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #50 on: May 19, 2019, 01:14:11 PM »
J'Oden - You're welcome.  Like your significant other, I'm at a loss to understand why someone would want to experience hallucinations as my experience with them was so distressing as a child.  But I know plenty of people who have used these types of drugs and enjoyed it so I guess it's just a personal hang up due to my childhood experiences.  I also wonder a bit if schizophrenia could be genetic and using various drugs would somehow 'unlock' that part of my brain.

You may be interested in "How to Change your Mind" by Michael Pollen.   He talks quite a bit about how psychedelics are believed to work.   Under the correct conditions, psychedelics can cause long-term position changes in mental health, but can cause psychotic breaks in people disposed to mental illness.   


https://smile.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence-ebook/dp/B076GPJXWZ/ref=sr_1_3?crid=37OW9TV7L9MAM&keywords=how+to+change+your+mind+michael+pollan&qid=1558292986&s=gateway&sprefix=how+to+change+%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-3

Leisured

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #51 on: May 28, 2019, 12:53:14 AM »
Have not read Pollan, but have read Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception Heaven and Hell'.  Huxley tried magic mushrooms in Los Angeles in the fifties, and wrote about his experiences. He had the impression that there is a torrent of perceptions pouring into us, and the brain slows it down to a trickle, just to allow the brain's owner to survive in a hostile world.

Some people think that changing our mood with chemicals is a reasonable thing to do, and we do that often with tea or coffee and alcohol. The substances ingested must be safe, but if they are safe, I agree that changing the way you see the world in a positive way is a reasonable thing to do.

I do not say that mind altering substanbces are safe now, but they may be in the future.



Linea_Norway

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #52 on: May 28, 2019, 01:00:38 AM »
Have not read Pollan, but have read Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception Heaven and Hell'.  Huxley tried magic mushrooms in Los Angeles in the fifties, and wrote about his experiences. He had the impression that there is a torrent of perceptions pouring into us, and the brain slows it down to a trickle, just to allow the brain's owner to survive in a hostile world.

Some people think that changing our mood with chemicals is a reasonable thing to do, and we do that often with tea or coffee and alcohol. The substances ingested must be safe, but if they are safe, I agree that changing the way you see the world in a positive way is a reasonable thing to do.

I do not say that mind altering substances are safe now, but they may be in the future.

Substances like coffee and alcohol might not have passed the narcotics laws in many countries, had they been introduced today. Especially alcohol causes a lot of negative side effects for society (drunk driving, violence etc).

In Norway, a person was recently put in jail for 2 years for bringing along a bunch of mushrooms into the country. No way that I would consider smuggling them in.

Dicey

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #53 on: May 28, 2019, 05:37:26 AM »
Paging @wooljaguar.

J'Oden

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #54 on: May 28, 2019, 06:08:58 AM »
Have not read Pollan, but have read Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception Heaven and Hell'.  Huxley tried magic mushrooms in Los Angeles in the fifties, and wrote about his experiences. He had the impression that there is a torrent of perceptions pouring into us, and the brain slows it down to a trickle, just to allow the brain's owner to survive in a hostile world.

Some people think that changing our mood with chemicals is a reasonable thing to do, and we do that often with tea or coffee and alcohol. The substances ingested must be safe, but if they are safe, I agree that changing the way you see the world in a positive way is a reasonable thing to do.

I do not say that mind altering substanbces are safe now, but they may be in the future.

It took me a little bit to parse through this. Possibly due to not changing my mood enough with coffee. :)

If I'm understanding you correctly, you feel that it is reasonable to change your perception in a positive manner using chemicals, and that mind altering substances aren't currently safe, but they might be?

In Norway, a person was recently put in jail for 2 years for bringing along a bunch of mushrooms into the country. No way that I would consider smuggling them in.

No good deed goes unpunished. Will it actually be 2 years for that person in Norway? Or is it like the US, where it's 2 years, and then 2 other years of something else, and then...

wooljaguar

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #55 on: May 28, 2019, 11:17:57 PM »
Paging @wooljaguar.

Oh, hi! I don't have much time to expound upon this right now (finals week!) but my views on legality and stigma are pretty well summed up here.

It's pretty common knowledge that I'm pro-psychedelic, since I'm indeed working on devoting my life to psychedelic therapy pretty much the minute it becomes legal, if not beforehand (in a research setting).

I do feel the need to speak directly to this, @Hula Hoop:

I also wonder a bit if schizophrenia could be genetic and using various drugs would somehow 'unlock' that part of my brain.

...by confirming your wonderings. Indeed, the cases of people who get lost and never come back from psychedelic use are, so far, pretty much all documented cases of underlying schizophrenia, psychosis, mania, or bipolar disorder that were triggered by these drugs. It's highly contraindicated for people with an individual history or immediate family history of these kinds of disorders—the ones that lean toward mental chaos rather than mental rigidity—to experiment with this class of drugs. Not every drug is for every person.

Linea_Norway

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #56 on: May 28, 2019, 11:53:26 PM »

You may be interested in "How to Change your Mind" by Michael Pollen.   He talks quite a bit about how psychedelics are believed to work.   Under the correct conditions, psychedelics can cause long-term position changes in mental health, but can cause psychotic breaks in people disposed to mental illness.   


https://smile.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence-ebook/dp/B076GPJXWZ/ref=sr_1_3?crid=37OW9TV7L9MAM&keywords=how+to+change+your+mind+michael+pollan&qid=1558292986&s=gateway&sprefix=how+to+change+%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-3

I have now started with mindfulness. I have just read that this can also physically change your mind. So maybe the same can be achieved by just meditating.

I have started on the other book that was mentioned, about microdosing. That was not about mushrooms, but about microdosing on Cannabis. But I'll read it anyway, as it doesn't hurt to gain more insights.

Leisured

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #57 on: May 30, 2019, 08:24:19 AM »
Some people think that changing our mood with chemicals is a reasonable thing to do, and we do that often with tea or coffee and alcohol. The substances ingested must be safe, but if they are safe, I agree that changing the way you see the world in a positive way is a reasonable thing to do.

I do not say that mind altering substanbces are safe now, but they may be in the future.

It took me a little bit to parse through this. Possibly due to not changing my mood enough with coffee. :)

If I'm understanding you correctly, you feel that it is reasonable to change your perception in a positive manner using chemicals, and that mind altering substances aren't currently safe, but they might be?
[/quote]

You got there, Oden. What is hard to understand?




Hula Hoop

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #58 on: May 30, 2019, 12:58:12 PM »
I do feel the need to speak directly to this, @Hula Hoop:

I also wonder a bit if schizophrenia could be genetic and using various drugs would somehow 'unlock' that part of my brain.

...by confirming your wonderings. Indeed, the cases of people who get lost and never come back from psychedelic use are, so far, pretty much all documented cases of underlying schizophrenia, psychosis, mania, or bipolar disorder that were triggered by these drugs. It's highly contraindicated for people with an individual history or immediate family history of these kinds of disorders—the ones that lean toward mental chaos rather than mental rigidity—to experiment with this class of drugs. Not every drug is for every person.

Thanks wooljaguar.  Glad I've always stayed on terra firma then.  I guess trying psychedelics will have to be one of those things (like climbing Mount Everest) that I never try.

Good luck with your finals!

J'Oden

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #59 on: May 30, 2019, 03:35:40 PM »
You got there, Oden. What is hard to understand?

Nothing. I just thought maybe I had missed something specific or meaningful. But it sounds like I get what you are saying. Thanks for clarifying.

Shane

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #60 on: August 15, 2019, 08:54:35 AM »
Just started reading Michael Pollan's fascinating book, How to Change Your Mind... It's been kinda slow reading, so far, because I keep Googling things Pollan mentions in the book, which leads to me to websites, articles, Ted Talks, etc.

Here are a couple of things I've found through Pollan's book, so far:

The work being done at Johns Hopkins by Roland Griffiths and others is pretty interesting! Here's a link to Johns Hopkins' Psychedelics page.

Researcher and psychotherapist Rick Doblin's Ted Talk is pretty convincing that there are definitely beneficial therapeutic uses for psychedelics in treating PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. Here's Doblin's Ted Talk.

Retired Oracle executive Bob Jesse's organization The Council on Spiritual Practices' (CSP) website has lots of links to research papers and policy initiatives. Jesse has been quietly working behind the scenes for decades to make real, modern, exhaustive, scientific research on psychedelics legal again. Here's CSP's website.

Tyson

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #61 on: August 15, 2019, 10:02:12 AM »
BTW, mushrooms are now decriminalized in Denver.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #62 on: August 15, 2019, 10:51:23 AM »
Looks like it's pretty popular at the local library, may have to wait for a while.

As a result of this topic, decided to put a hold on it at the local branch. I am 16th in line! haha

GuitarStv

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #63 on: August 15, 2019, 11:19:21 AM »
BTW, mushrooms are now decriminalized in Denver.

Good.  For too long, the citizens of Denver have been unable to partake of a nice portabello risotto.

eljefe-speaks

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #64 on: August 15, 2019, 11:27:38 AM »
I was also going to add that there is some excellent further reading in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It is a very well-written book by a young Tom Wolfe that goes into some detail on the negative consequences of careless LSD use. I recall an anecdote in the book where a woman gulps pure LSD directly from a milk carton and has a complete psychotic break. The book also goes into interesting detail about how, in the 60's, the northeastern USA generally had a more studious interest in psychedelics, led by Timothy Leary. The western USA, led by Ken Kesey, generally saw more care-free, party-oriented experimentation.   

Shane

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #65 on: August 15, 2019, 10:47:13 PM »
BTW, mushrooms are now decriminalized in Denver.

Cool! Sounds like a step in the right direction.

Shane

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #66 on: August 16, 2019, 07:39:40 AM »
I was also going to add that there is some excellent further reading in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It is a very well-written book by a young Tom Wolfe that goes into some detail on the negative consequences of careless LSD use. I recall an anecdote in the book where a woman gulps pure LSD directly from a milk carton and has a complete psychotic break. The book also goes into interesting detail about how, in the 60's, the northeastern USA generally had a more studious interest in psychedelics, led by Timothy Leary. The western USA, led by Ken Kesey, generally saw more care-free, party-oriented experimentation.

Maybe..The Electric Kool-Aid Acid isn't the best book to start with for people who are seriously interested in learning more about the fascinating field of psychedelics. :)

Tom Wolfe's book about Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters is definitely an entertaining read, but it's not in any way related to the groundbreaking, serious research into psychedelics that's been taking place, once again, after a 30+ year hiatus due to the US government's War on Drugs, at Johns Hopkins, NYU, and other research institutions around the world, since the late 1990s.

The psilocybin research project at Johns Hopkins has, so far, given over 1000 (high) doses of synthetic psilocybin to several hundred carefully screened volunteers, and they have not yet had even one serious adverse reaction. Not even one!

Here's Michael Pollan's take on Timothy Leary's "contribution" to psychedelic research:

"...the charismatic figure of Timothy Leary looms large over the history of psychedelics in America. Yet it doesn't take many hours in the library before you begin to wonder if maybe Timothy Leary looms a little too large in that history, or at least in our popular understanding of it. I was hardly alone in assuming that the Harvard Psilocybin Project - launched by Leary in the fall of 1960, immediately after his first life-changing experience with psilocybin in Mexico - represented the beginning of serious academic research into these substances or that Leary's dismissal from Harvard in 1963 marked the end of that research. But in fact neither proposition is even remotely true.

Leary played an important role in the modern history of psychedelics, but it's not at all the pioneering role he wrote for himself. His success in shaping the popular narrative of psychedelics in the 1960's obscures as much as it reveals, creating a kind of reality distortion field that makes it difficult to see everything that came either before or after his big moment on stage.

In a truer telling of the history, the Harvard Psilocybin Project would appear more like the beginning of the end of what had been a remarkably fertile and promising period of research that unfolded during the previous decade far from Cambridge, in places as far flung as Saskatchewan, Vancouver, California, and England, and, everywhere, with a lot less sound and fury or countercultural baggage. The larger-than-life figure of Leary has also obscured from view the role of a dedicated but little-known group of scientists, therapists and passionate amateurs who, long before Leary had ever tried psilocybin or LSD, developed the theoretical framework to make sense of these unusual chemicals and devised the therapeutic protocols to put them to use healing people. Many of these researchers eventually watched in dismay as Leary (and his "antics," as they inevitably referred to his various stunts and pronouncements) ignited what would become a public bonfire of all their hard-won knowledge and experience.

In telling the modern history of psychedelics, I want to put aside the Leary saga, at least until the crack-up where it properly belongs, to see if we can't recover some of that knowledge and the experience that produced it without passing it through the light-bending prism of the "Psychedelic Sixties." In doing so, I'm following in the steps of several of the current generation of psychedelic researchers, who, beginning in the late 1990s, set out to excavate the intellectual ruins of this first flowering of research into LSD and psilocybin and were astounded by what they found."

partgypsy

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #67 on: August 16, 2019, 11:02:59 AM »
This is the little I know regarding neurochemistry.
There are drugs which are highly addictive, and being highly addictive cause major health, and harm to the person who is addicted. Those are things like crack and cocaine, meth, heroin, and maybe there are some more things out there. They don't give any benefits (other than initial highs, and later avoidance of withdrawal) and have high societal costs. Legalizing them would not reduce the number of people getting addicted and in fact may increase it, so I would never be in favor of that. However, I do not mind there being some decriminalization of people found with small amounts because they are addicts and using, and redirecting those people to rehab versus prison. 

Alcohol doesn't have much health benefits, but the majority of people who drink do so responsibly and do not develop a drinking problem/dependence. However a certain percentage do and it is devastating to them, their families, and society. In addition there are people who may not be addicted who abuse alcohol, get in fights, drive drunk, get in accidents etc. That said, alcohol is solidly a part of our society I do not see it being outlawed.

Pot may be mildly or psychologically addictive. There is no evidence psychedelics like lsd, mushrooms are addictive at all. I'm not going to go into benefits, but they appear to be low on the harm scale. I have no problem with mj, and these kind of psychoactive drugs being legalized or at least de-criminalized, if being used say while not operating machinery, etc.  My major caveat is that the human brain is still developing probably until age 24, 25. Taking any kind of drug that crosses the blood brain barrier (which all of these can do) can affect the brain but especially when it is still developing. There may be permanent effects, and we simply do not know enough at this time. So even if decriminalized, there should be limits on what age, and in what conditions people can legally use these substances, similar to alcohol. The benefit to legalizing these substances is, quality control. At this time people could add substances to pot, lsd, or it have impurities that harms people and there is no way to regulate this as long as it is illegal. 

   
« Last Edit: August 16, 2019, 11:08:45 AM by partgypsy »

Linea_Norway

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #68 on: August 17, 2019, 05:59:32 AM »
This is the little I know regarding neurochemistry.
There are drugs which are highly addictive, and being highly addictive cause major health, and harm to the person who is addicted. Those are things like crack and cocaine, meth, heroin, and maybe there are some more things out there. They don't give any benefits (other than initial highs, and later avoidance of withdrawal) and have high societal costs. Legalizing them would not reduce the number of people getting addicted and in fact may increase it, so I would never be in favor of that. However, I do not mind there being some decriminalization of people found with small amounts because they are addicts and using, and redirecting those people to rehab versus prison. 

Alcohol doesn't have much health benefits, but the majority of people who drink do so responsibly and do not develop a drinking problem/dependence. However a certain percentage do and it is devastating to them, their families, and society. In addition there are people who may not be addicted who abuse alcohol, get in fights, drive drunk, get in accidents etc. That said, alcohol is solidly a part of our society I do not see it being outlawed.

Pot may be mildly or psychologically addictive. There is no evidence psychedelics like lsd, mushrooms are addictive at all. I'm not going to go into benefits, but they appear to be low on the harm scale. I have no problem with mj, and these kind of psychoactive drugs being legalized or at least de-criminalized, if being used say while not operating machinery, etc.  My major caveat is that the human brain is still developing probably until age 24, 25. Taking any kind of drug that crosses the blood brain barrier (which all of these can do) can affect the brain but especially when it is still developing. There may be permanent effects, and we simply do not know enough at this time. So even if decriminalized, there should be limits on what age, and in what conditions people can legally use these substances, similar to alcohol. The benefit to legalizing these substances is, quality control. At this time people could add substances to pot, lsd, or it have impurities that harms people and there is no way to regulate this as long as it is illegal. 

 

About young people and there brain still developing. Yesterday I watched a TED talk about medical use of phychedelics. It mentioned that some experienced mindful meditators sometimes use phychedelics while meditating. It is know that meditation itself can alter the brain. With phychedelics, it certainly altered. So this is also in adults, not only in youngsters. The brain changed in a positive way, people felt more altruistic and in union with other living beings and nature.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2020, 11:58:51 AM by Linea_Norway »

partgypsy

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #69 on: August 20, 2019, 07:20:32 AM »
I did do some psychedelics in college, and it was a positive experience for me. I did it with people who were experienced, there was always one person who was not dosing to be the chaperone. Anything you learn from these drugs, there is a way to get to that place naturally, though it may be more difficult, involved, fleeting, etc. A little goes a long way and more is not necessarily better.
 

Shane

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #70 on: January 21, 2020, 06:49:30 PM »
If you get a chance, check out Louie Schwartzberg's new film: Fantastic Fungi. The cinematography is stunning, and the content matter is potentially world changing.

Dancin'Dog

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #71 on: February 26, 2020, 11:42:13 PM »
I've really enjoyed most of the psychedelics that I have had over the years.  I find them much more interesting than alcohol and cannabis.  Mushrooms & DMT are really nice.  If you think you might like them, in my experience you probably will.  I intend to spend more time enjoying them in retirement.  :)










 

Dancin'Dog

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #72 on: January 18, 2021, 10:46:15 PM »
In case you were wondering what kind of visuals to expect from DMT here's a good video from a Harvard psychedelic study group.


The visual descriptions begin around 21:00ish


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loCBvaj4eSg&ab_channel=QualiaResearchInstitute

Luke Warm

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Re: Mustachians and Psychedelics
« Reply #73 on: March 08, 2021, 06:38:26 AM »
i started reading the michael pollan book on psychedelics. pretty interesting