Magic mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists

[Ansel]

:-o

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...?newsfeed=true

[precious007]

hopefully they'll come up with other sort of pills.

seemingly all the depression drugs these days are nothing but a short term- fix.

haven't heard of anyone treated with Zoloft or the other well known depression drugs.

[Fazer]

So ... if i have some of this drug that's derived from a magic mushroom ... I could .. relive positive and happy moments of my last trip, OMG, not the talking road sign

[precious007]

Depression is not a stand alone psychological issue -

There's just about 100 factors involved, some of them are the diet, the lack of nutrition, the lack of exercise.

It's a vicious circle where the patient starts having an self-destructive behavior from all points of view.

IMO depression has to do a lot with a chemical imbalance that affects the neuro-transmiters in the brain, yet the Magic Mushroom might help.

However a lot of depressed people isolate themselfs, and lay down in bed all day, they're not productive, they don't socialize anymore and all of this leads to self-destruction.

[sgreger1]

lol, I think there are probably much easier ways to help depression than taking some mushi's. I could see that going horribly wrong, giving a seriouselly depressed person a bunch of halucinagens.

[lxskllr]

Psychedelics can turn your life around. I think it's grand idea for the depressed to use them under informed(not necessarily professional) supervision.

[truthwolf1]

The few times I did partake were always good experiences. The worst part is the waiting game and then the stomach cramps that come from uncontrollable laughter. The hallucinations I had were on par with THC.. not anything like that LSD which throws you in some strange dimension for hours!!! NEVER AGAIN

[heders]

I too believe that hallucinogens can help with depression. Gives you a whole new perspective of life. There is a risk of the trip being a bad one, but even that can be therapeutical (often more than a good trip) - if you learn to allow it and do not resist. Under medical supervision and good set & setting, I think it could be a really good form of therapy.

Depression is mainly the cause of believing and identifying with negative thoughts. I think a hallucinogenic trip could help with seeing things as they are (thoughts as just thoughts), and thus setting yourself free.

[precious007]

Psychedelics can turn your life around. I think it's grand idea for the depressed to use them under informed(not necessarily professional) supervision.

rooms, especially the ones used in psychadelics such as LSD are known to expand one's perspective on life, creativity and so on.

There's dozens of inventors, poets, writers that used this drug.

Seemingly it has some potential to change the way neuro-transmiters work.

Steve Jobs has been using LSD even he admitted, yet he build a 200+ billion industry and claimed that LSD has particularly played an important role on his creativity.

It's not a secret anymore, some of world's leaders, business owners and so on use drugs.... such as LSD and cocaine, and there's no wonder why....

So far, simple anti-depressasant are only a short time relief and I'm talking out of my own experience.

[Frosted]

Francis Crick used LSD when he had an epiphany about the structure of DNA.
Other scientists have also claimed that LSD enabled them to get amongst the molecules.
Artists use it for creativity.

I've never tried it but it sounds pretty amazing stuff.

[Fazer]

I've done a few LSD tabs (a few years ago now), had a great time

[Crow]

Washington has its own type of magic mushroom called Psilocybe stuntzii / Psilocybe pugetensis.

The mushroom is named in honor of mycologist Daniel Stuntz of the University of Washington. It was originally identified growing on the University of Washington campus. Also known as Psilocybe pugetensis.

Psilocybe stuntzii is found growing scattered to gregarious to cespitose, rarely solitary, in conifer wood chips and bark mulch, in soils rich in woody debris, and in new lawns of freshly laid sod or any newly mulched garden throughout the western region of the Pacific Northwest. From late July through December, has been observed growing all year long in the Seattle, Washington area, also reported from California, rarely as far south as Santa Cruz.

-----------------------

I'm not suggesting that anyone should go out looking for these mushrooms (that's a very risky thing to do, especially for a novice). This post is strictly intended for informational purposes only. Stay safe!

[sgreger1]

Psychedelics can turn your life around. I think it's grand idea for the depressed to use them under informed(not necessarily professional) supervision.

I agree about it turning your life around, but I mean imagine some depressed guy who is already considering suicide and sees everything in a negative light to the point where it is crippling his ability to function in his day to day life. Now give him some shrooms.

One of two things will happen:

1)He will realize (to quot Bill Hicks) that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream,and that we are merely the imagination of ourselves.

or

2) He will freak the **** out and the walls will melt to reveal a satanic ritual occuring behind them, complete with voices in his head telling him that the doctor is really a gremlin who must be killed.

I can just see it going both ways.


Correction: I have seen it happen both ways

[sgreger1]

I too believe that hallucinogens can help with depression. Gives you a whole new perspective of life. There is a risk of the trip being a bad one, but even that can be therapeutical (often more than a good trip) - if you learn to allow it and do not resist. Under medical supervision and good set & setting, I think it could be a really good form of therapy.

Depression is mainly the cause of believing and identifying with negative thoughts. I think a hallucinogenic trip could help with seeing things as they are (thoughts as just thoughts), and thus setting yourself free.

This is probably the single most important concept to understand when using halucinogens. This is literally key to the entire experience, whether good or bad.



Also i'd like to shamelessly plug an awesome book I read not long ago DMT: The Spirit Molecule"

Absolutely fascinating book written by a doctor who got a grant and clearance from the government to do do research on halucinagens by giving DMT to a variety of volunteers (all of whom had used halucino's before). It is an absolutely breathtaking read aftter you get past the first few chapters. The interesting thing is how almost all of the patietns saw essentially the same thing, as though they had all accessed some other dimension. Most notably they all appeared to speak with entities that they called the machine elves or prayin mantises while under the trip, and they always told them the same things. I am amazed at how a diverse group of participants all managed to have the same basic images in their trips.

Whether it is all really just your brain making it up or not, more research is needed to figure out what it is that would make so many of them see these entities on the other side and why they all have the same stories, and also why people who claim to be abducted by aliens tend to report the same things. Maybe people who believe they were abducted by aliens really just had their pineal gland squirt a little extra DMT/seratonin mix because of stress or something and that's why they saw what they think they saw? Also near death experiences, people report very similar things as the subjects in this DMT study, perhaps when people who have died for a few seconds and claimed to have talked to god or angels or seen hell etc were just experiencing a self induced DMT trip due to the stress of the event?


Fascinating stuff to think about, if it is all just in your head and your head is capable of that, than how sure can you be that what we experience as concensus reality is any more real than the vivid halucinations you enjoy while on LSD or the scenarios that occur in your dreams? By what frame of reference is reality judged? We assume it's the brain and that since the brain is in this reality that this must the the "real" one and all others to be halucinations, but in my dreams I believe i have a brain to, so while dreaming I would label the dream world as the "real" reality. Maybe it's the Matrix and we're all just brains sitting in a vat somewhere. Who knows.

[lxskllr]

Fascinating stuff to think about, if it is all just in your head and your head is capable of that, than how sure can you be that what we experience as concensus reality is any more real than the vivid halucinations you enjoy while on LSD or the scenarios that occur in your dreams? By what frame of reference is reality judged? We assume it's the brain and that since the brain is in this reality that this must the the "real" one and all others to be halucinations, but in my dreams I believe i have a brain to, so while dreaming I would label the dream world as the "real" reality. Maybe it's the Matrix and we're all just brains sitting in a vat somewhere. Who knows.

I've amused myself with that thought before. Maybe acid is really a reality straightener, and that's what the world really looks like :^)