Darviridis
commented
11 months ago I saw serial "How to change your mind". It opened my eyes to psychedelic research. It consists of four episodes, each of which tells about one of the psychedelics: LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, Mescaline.
LSD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD
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LSD was first obtained in 1938 from ergot (a fungus that affects cereals)
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Under LSD, all the senses go astray. Here is a video where a person demonstrated this using editing: https://youtu.be/LE6qjRfVyBE
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Under LSD, the way of thinking changes. People most often experience 4 types of psychedelic experiences: abstract (aesthetic), biographical, perinatal (re-experience biological birth), transpersonal (expansion of consciousness and death of the ego).
- enhance cognitive processes and abilities
- increase energy levels
- improve emotional balance and mood
- reduced anxiety
- help treat depression
- help treat addiction and reduce substance misuse
- help reduce pain
- help reduce symptoms of ADD
- improve cardiovascular endurance
- increase sleep quality
- reduce sensitivity to trauma
Psilocybin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin
In 1957, the American banker and amateur ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson and his wife, Valentina P. Wasson, a physician, studied the ritual use of psychoactive mushrooms by indigenous people in Mexico. And Maria Sabina revealed to them the secret of using psilocybin mushrooms. After writing the publication of an article about psilocybin mushrooms, many people began to come to Maria Sabina. As the community was besieged by Westerners wanting to experience the mushroom-induced hallucinations, Sabina attracted attention from the Mexican police who believed her to be a drug dealer. The community blamed Sabina; consequently she was ostracized, her house was burned down, her son was murdered, and she was briefly jailed. Sabina later regretted having introduced Wasson to the practice.
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Anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects that last for several months.
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Helpful in the treatment of depression and anxiety in people who are terminally ill.
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Treatment nicotine and alcohol dependence.
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Increase the brain’s ability to create new emotional and information pathways.
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Help reduce symptoms of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder)
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People can process their memories and deal with childhood trauma
Psilocybin decriminalization in the United States
MDMA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
MDMA was first developed in 1912 by Merck. It was used to enhance psychotherapy beginning in the 1970s. But everything changed when he got into industrial production. MDMA is commonly associated with dance parties, raves, and electronic dance music.
Benefits:
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Increased self-confidence, sociability, and perception of facilitated communication
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Entactogenic effects—increased empathy or feelings of closeness with others and oneself
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Relaxation and reduced anxiety
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Increased emotionality
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A sense of inner peace
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Mild hallucination
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Enhanced sensation, perception, or sexuality
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Altered sense of time
Mescaline
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mescaline
Peyote has been used for at least 5,700 years by Indigenous peoples of the Americas in Mexico. Europeans noted use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies upon early contact, notably by the Huichols in Mexico. Other mescaline-containing cacti such as the San Pedro have a long history of use in South America, from Peru to Ecuador.
Aldous Huxley described his experience with mescaline in the essay The Doors of Perception (1954).
Mescaline is legal only for certain religious groups (such as the Native American Church by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978)
Synthetic mescaline, but not mescaline derived from cacti, was officially decriminalized in the state of Colorado by ballot measure Proposition 122 in November 2022.
Native Americans are against the decriminalization of nature because they are allowed to use peyote and they are worried that everyone will have access to it and they will not have enough of it for ritual purposes: https://chacruna.net/decriminalize_nature_drug_reform_settler_colonialism/
Mescaline has a wide array of suggested medical usage, including treatment of alcoholism and depression.
Interesting facts
Many psychedelics were banned from consumption and research in the 1970s. Due to the fact that many people of pop culture of those times used them incorrectly and this greatly influenced the behavior in society.
The action of psychedelics is to turn off the filters that filter out signals that the normal (habitual) state of consciousness considers unnecessary.
People who use psychedelics get a new spiritual experience. They experience "ego death" and begin to feel part of this world.
I used to treat psychedelics the same way I treated other drugs. But now I believe that psychedelics can help people cope with mental disorders. They may be the next step in the development of psychiatry.
Pcychedelics
When compounds bind to serotonin 5-HT2A receptors,they modulate the activity of key circuits in the brain involved with sensory perception and cognition. However, the exact nature of how psychedelics induce changes in perception and cognition via the 5-HT2A receptor is still unknown, although reduction in default mode network activity and increased functional connectivity between regions in the brain as a result may be one of the most relevant pharmacological mechanisms underpinning the psychedelic experience, particularly ego death