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Sunday, February 22, 2015

Psilocybin Research: Possible Psychiatric And Psychological Applications

Psilocybin mushrooms include a wide range of species.

Psilocybin Mushroom
Wikipedia

One of the most common - and most potent - varieties of psilocybin mushroom grows in cow dung. 

Psilocybe semilanceata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybe_semilanceata
(I do not believe the msuhroom variety in the dung photo above is psilocybe semilanceata.)

Dear Steve,

Thanks for your email.

I follow psychedelic research pretty closely.

Here are some useful resources:

Diane Rehm Show: Using Psychedelic Drugs To Treat PTSD & Other Mental Disorders

The Neuroscience Of Pot: Researchers Explain Why Marijuana May Bring Serenity Or Psychosis


 It is important to remember two things.

1.) Psychedelics are unimaginably powerful. (I am deliberate in using the word "unimaginably.") 

2.) Psychedelics are like elevators: "Sometimes you get the lift. Sometimes you get the shaft."  (It is, for example, possible to feel oneself -- in an acutely enhanced state of consciousness -- as less than a sub-atomic particle adrift in an infinite, hostile Universe.)

That said, I think it is increasingly likely that under controlled circumstances -- and first undergoing psychological testing -- that medically-supervised administration of psilocybin has less risk of "getting the shaft" than other "major" psychedelics (with the possible exception of ketamine which, in some ways, may not be in the same class with LSD and mescaline.



***

Since I have exhausted my free monthly allotment of New Yorker articles, I was unable to read the article you forwarded. Please cut and paste into the main body of an email. Thanks!

Pax tecum

Alan

PS Thanks for Friday's invitation! 

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 7:16 AM, SD wrote:

Hi guys -

FYI

Friend BF posted on FB that this was the most interesting article he has read in years. B being one of the smartest and most well-read people I know, I read the article. I agree. 

I have no experience with anything like this, but this all rings true to me. "It has the potential to make many people's lives (and deaths) much less awful," B writes.

If you get a chance to read it tell me what you think.


Peace,

S

***

Follow-up correspondence:

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 12:39 PM, CH wrote:

Not having "Interstellar" nominated for Best Picture or Nolan for Best Director (or McConaghy or Chastain for that matter) elicits almost the exact same feeling I had much if the time during the Bush administration when the news media were sleepily collaborating with the war build-up,  a weird kind of undermining of my sense of reality, which would be replaced by a whoosh of relief whenever I would talk to a liberal.
I had a similar experience last night reading the reviews of Interstellar on Amazon.com -- "best science fiction movie ever, maybe best movie in any genre". There was that familiar whoosh of relief -- which means I wasn't noticing how bad it felt for it not to be acknowledged publicly and for the oversight to go largely without critical comment. 
So it's interesting that your thoughts return to Republican politicians at the end of your post.  It's an old 60s trope that hallucinogenic experiences would open the minds of those guys. I guess older than that, with Dickin's A Christmas Carol a forerunner.  Now there's a screenplay we could write: the villain rounds up conservatives in detention camps with the plan of executing them while the hero tries to convince him they are redeemable by leading them on mind expanding hallucinogenic experiences hoping to open their minds.  Before it's too late!
C

Dear C,

Thanks for  your email.

I love the Whoosh! 

Perfect expression of the pent-up emotion and subsequent release upon discovering The Church of The Already Converted.  

As for Republicans and detention camps...

Surely psychotherapists can devise/finagle hallucinogenic therapy for sociopathic/psychopathic criminals.

It's an experiment well worth running and experiments currently in progress indicate the real possibility of pharmaceutically-induced metanoia. 

Among other potential benefits, such experimentation would provide useful comparison of right-wing and left-wing psyches.

Besides, right-wingers are already hallucinating (so they have nothing to lose).

Americans Think Foreign Aid Consumes 1/3rd Of GNP. This % Is Totally Hallucinated


If you have not listened to the Diane Rehm Show about the promising use of psychedelic drugs for the treatment of "shell-shocked" soldiers, it is worthwhile. 

Diane Rehm Show: Using Psychedelic Drugs To Treat PTSD & Other Mental Disorders

Might see you later. Thanks for the invite.

Pax tecum

Alan

PS Let's take a closer look at writing that screenplay... Maybe a musical! 
"Somewhere Over The Psilo-Psyops Rainbow."






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