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Psychedelic
I'm a human doing some human organizing around the experience that's been labeled "psychedelic" and the practices, medicines and plant compounds around the planet and throughout time which have been known to elicit this experience. Whether this is a "real" visionary state or just a bi-product of a brain process, it IS something that happens to humans and certain other creatures on Earth. The fact that humans have such experiences across cultures and throughout time is a phenomenon. This forum encourages discussion of the phenomenology of psychedelic experience.
On the weekend I am planning to take psilocybin for the first time. I am generally a very careful and cautious person. During my twenties I got struck heavily by depression. What saved me from it and many bad habits that I picked up through the years was an ever increasing meditation regiment that continuously reduced the frequency of my recurring bouts of depression. I am not sure what to do. I feel like psilocybin could be just the thing that completely cuts the remaining shackles of my depression or this is what I fear; it drives me completely insane. Maybe meditation will bring me also there, maybe I am just too impatient. I don't know. I am looking to rediscover genuine joy. Being able to relate to people. I often have the feeling I can not connect to people on a fundamental level because there is this traumatizing depression with us in the room and I just think they haven't seen what I have seen. And this separates us. I feel undecided and it seems like I am lacking the wisdom to make a decision.
The dominant factor spanned a continuum of experiential facets whose opposite extreme flagged words that appear to describe mental expansion, including the terms universe, space, world, consciousness, breakthrough, existence, earth, dimension, reality, flame, and tunnel—all of which would be consistent with the phenomenology of the mystical experience (3). References to liminal conscious beings, also characteristic of the mystical experience, were described by the terms entity, sitter, alien, beings, and spirit. A theme of immediate time horizon was indicated by the term seconds and also suggested by references to bodily systems such as eyes and lungs, along with physiological functions inhale(d), exhaled, and breath. At the level of neurotransmitter receptors, this constellation of induced conscious alterations was linked most strongly with drugs that preferentially bind to D1, 5-HT7, KOR, 5-HT5A, as well as Sigma-1 and NMDA. The codependencies embedded in this profile of receptor bindings and subjective terms were most closely associated with the hallucinogenic drugs DMT, salvinorin A, 5-MeO-DMT, and ketamine. The anatomical brain regions that coexpress these sets of receptor density proxies included some of the highest regions of the association cortex, especially the rostral and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, and also prominently in the primary motor and sensory cortices. >
toad.social
www.samwoolfe.com
Mystical experiences are characterised by ineffability – that is, what is subjectively experienced is difficult, or impossible, to adequately put into words. However, we can go a step further and say that such experiences are transrational: their ineffability relates to the fact that these experiences lie outside the scope of reason. >
After assessing the semantic similarity between 15,000 reports linked to the use of 165 psychoactive substances and 625 NDE narratives, we determined that the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine consistently resulted in reports most similar to those associated with NDEs. Ketamine was followed by Salvia divinorum (a plant containing a potent and selective receptor agonist) and a series of serotonergic psychedelics, including the endogenous serotonin 2A receptor agonist N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). This similarity was driven by semantic concepts related to consciousness of the self and the environment, but also by those associated with the therapeutic, ceremonial and religious aspects of drug use. Our analysis sheds light on the long-standing link between certain drugs and the experience of “dying“, suggests that ketamine could be used as a safe and reversible experimental model for NDE phenomenology, and supports the speculation that endogenous NMDA antagonists with neuroprotective properties may be released in the proximity of death.
•Study on the prevalence and associations of challenging, difficult, or distressing classic psychedelic experiences. •Self-reported co-use of certain medications (e.g., lithium) was associated with degree of difficulty and risk of harm. •Various set and setting variables (e.g., no psychological support) were associated with degree of difficulty and risk of harm.
bigthink.com
Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.
