Psilocybin saved my life. I'm no longer suicidal, I'm no longer a practicing alcoholic, and outside of a few things here and there, I'm generally at peace with my life. I cannot express how grateful I am for psilocybin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application
everyone can perceive that psychedelic is doing many highly variable things at once and probably shouldn't be recommended, so they just say their experience
These people are inspired—perhaps by the Almighty, i'm not judging—to preach The Gospel of psychedelics and praise any confirmation of these miracles. I'm simply pointing out that what appears to be the Omnipotence of the Almighty might very well be Selling Your Soul to the Devil for all you know. I'm an atheist, simply using metaphor to get the point across to you.
When you talk about how powerful medication is in warping the brain to cure intractable mental problems, that is not at all an endorsement of recreational use. Heroin makes you feel like your mother not only loves you, but makes up for her not loving when she abandoned you as a baby. Is heroin therefore a good idea? (and if you say "that's chemical dependency", you completely miss the point)
As far as I'm concerned, I think those things should be legal because not only sourcing them is easy anyway but it also escapes all quality control and regulation even though we still agree to sell much worse things as a society (like tobacco) and that's very incoherent.
I don't think any of the new age bullshit theory about healing mental illness (an already loosely defined thing) or whatever else is correct, but what is probably true, is that most of the stuff sold by the pharmaceutical companies is not any better (when it's not much worse) yet it is legal.
This is a classic case of capitalism bullshit: if you are having fun, you can't be a productive individual so that's not right, but in the meantime please buy our very similar drugs that's supposedly have the same results, without the fun.
One reason the advocates are going overboard with all the claims is probably because the industry is allowed to do the same with much less scrutiny, so it is an attempt at equilibrium, I guess. I doubt they will be successful at fighting fire with fire but it is annoying that it is such a political issue, people should be allowed to take those things if they want to...
without prior knowledge of what psychonauts say, I also experienced increased empathy or ability to relate to more people and animals. body language, cues, things that maybe come with mental development or maturity but seemed more refined and accelerated. on the empathy and EQ, it seems to wear off. so noticing that is a shared experience is fascinating to me, I wish it could be controlled for specifically to refine that aspect of the substance or trigger in our minds instead of jumping into the debate about legalizing that specific substance, and I understand the limitations in testing it, both from a legal and regulatory standpoint and from a control group and study standpoint
this leaves us at square one, where I can appreciate others experiencing it but I cant quite recommend either due to how varied the experience is
how do our brains decide to do anything, like eat ice cream? "hey, I loved that last time". We know that drugs are not experienced as universally positive because many people who try them in college do not go on use them throughout their adult lives.
It's not even a stretch if you squint at this. The currently accepted treatment is SSRIs, the second S standing for serotonin. Psychedelics work on serotonin receptors. Why would it be surprising that if you tweak your serotonin receptors, you get treatment for depression? Again, this is not true of alcohol or cannabis.
Which is not to say that psychedelics (LSD, 2C-B, Mescaline, Psilocybin) are not powerful stuff and that they allow for mental states that would be unlivable otherwise (clinically that would be schizophrenia or something like it). I do believe that their therapeutical and recreational benefits do outweigh the drawbacks though. There must be a better way to handle this than Schedule-1'ing the whole bunch.
I've only ever done them (mushrooms) alone, mixed with fresh lemon juice that somehow makes them more intense and shorter-acting (say 2.5h very intense trip I prefer much more than 6h of less intensity). A profound, maybe a bit life-changing experience. Laying down, eyes closed, listening to some mellow shamanic music, I went far and beyond anything I can explain with my words, dissolving senses, myself, and putting it back again afterwards piece by piece.
It was pure goodness and positivity, but I can imagine if it was so strong but negative it could have been soul-crushing. Pair it with already fragile personality and the need for professional oversight is always a good idea IMHO. Educate on top. Ignore on your own risk.
My few experiences, the first few times, over the course of a year, spread apart by 3-4 months, went from extremely dark to .. just positive, except the last one, where I had no visuals, no bliss at all, and just came to terms with something else in our lives that was going wrong.
The dark ones were rage and anger, and now it seems just gone, like there's nothing there. Like a weight lifted, and seemingly long term.
Congrats on finding a cure for your ailments
However, my personal experience has been that Psilocybin != Psilocybin - the mushroom itself is super important to the process, much like Indica and Sativa have different ways of connecting you to the mind and the aether, Psilocybin (at least for me) VERY much is the same thing, and it's much starker than cannabis is. Getting into woo-woo land here so apologize: I have some concern that just "Psilocybin" isn't a good prescription, that the "spirit" that works on you is unique to the mushroom family, and that both not knowing the mushroom to prescribe and also being clinical about it (Psilocybin vs Mushroom) may not be a good direction to go in to help people with their issues. I also think that about LSD, it might work a bit for a while, but imo it's not the best tool.
Then 4-actyl DMT, sometimes call psilacetin, became broadly available. This is a synthetic pro-drug for psilocin, just as psilocybin is a naturally-occurring pro-drug for psilocin.
After that, the opinion that the mushroom per se had anything to do with the experience became very rare. It turns out that psilocin is meaningfully different from, in particular, LSD, 2C-B, and MD(M)A.
There's definitely something special about it. But that something is also present when it comes in vitro, not just in vivo.
It’s fascinating how they can hit different.
Also important to keep in mind the same dose can hit someone different each time depending on surrounding life conditions. I’m a big believer that the mushrooms “show you what you need to see” at any given moment, and that can sometimes range considerably.
Taking it alone vs with friends is going to be a dramatic difference on its own, just because of what neural pathways are active when you take them.
Hallucinogenic experiences are rarely the same. So you can use the same amount of the same batch 3 different times and have 3 totally different experiences.
Some people claim that you can control experiences by contolling "set and setting." I don't buy even that; all we can really say is that the experiences are not consistent between trips and we don't know why.
also chewing fresh ginger or ginger tea
starting on an empty stomach, of course
but surprisingly, sometimes a little bit of miso soup midway can help with the "gastroparesis" type nausea that can emerge late stage
and also a little bit of diphenhydramine if it's still bad (like less than an antihistamine dose)
even if it is all kind of lipstick on a pig :)
That being said, mushrooms are not very good regardless so you can process them in a way that makes it palatable (teas, blended smoothies, etc). But that won't make that weird nausea feeling disappear, you just get used to it and it slowly becomes unnoticeable as you progress on the "experiment".
The nausea is a response of your body, telling you that you ingested something bad, because that basically what those things are: a poison, just a non-lethal one, and we know the positive fun effects so it makes it worth it, otherwise you would just want to throw up !
Last time I was sitting there miserable for an hour and I started thinking this is life in general. I can either continue to cry about the bad or try and fill my time with something positive. I started to take a walk and think more positively and it seemed to do the trick, for a bit anyway
Lsd is good but definitely not as good or as easy on the brain as mushrooms. Dmt is wild, dmt with a maoi I'm too scared to try.
I've tripped a lot. It's my preferred way to party, but these days I party rarely. Mdma,ket,coke,heroin,speed all leave me feeling gross and the risk factors for addiction are far too high for my liking.
Just like alcohol, those things are basically a poison, that you do not die from, provided you don't overdose (you probably have more chance dying of alcohol than mushrooms but still...).
People should take them to have a bit of fun, just like getting inebriated with alcohol and moving on with their life.
Beware of people who tries to pretend more, that are most likely full of shit and you can probably ignore most things they say if they lie about that...