Psychedelic Research - 2/2

May 22, 2014Jun 17, 2016

The Psychedelic Experience by Warrior Poet Aubrey Marcus (Video)

The Psychedelic Experience is an artistic video with a powerfully positive psychedelic message. The evocative images are timely interwoven with Aubrey’s voice, a harmonic synthesis of passion.

Aubrey Marcus – The Warrior Poet – is a well-known psychonaut, who, much like Jason Silva, positively describes the psychedelic experience for it’s ability to heal and reveal us.

Full Transcript:

What is the psychedelic experience? Aldous Huxley believed it was the fundamental craving of the human spirit. A desire to turn off the survival biased filter of perception just for a moment… and catch a glimpse beyond the bars of our cognitive prison.

The psychedelic experience does not require drugs. Religious history and spiritual traditions are built upon these sublime moments. Messiahs hear the voice of God after a 40 day fast. Holy men, having isolated themselves in a cave, suddenly emerge with visionary truth.

But to indulge in a 40 day fast to reach this heightened state is like burning your house down to bake a loaf of bread. One hour in a salt-water isolation tank quiets the noise of sensation until awareness becomes the mirror that reveals you to yourself. A single session of holotropic breathing restricts our mental chatter long enough to plunge you into the zero-state of visionary Inspiration. Then there are the earth movers… The plant medicines at the core of many religious sacraments, which according to Graham Hancock were integral to inspiring the earliest known art in caves throughout Europe.

These plants are technologies. In a recent placebo controlled study completed by Johns Hopkins university 18 healthy adults were given Psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic’ mushrooms. Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of their top five most positive experiences; 40% said it was the single most meaningful experience of their life.

Ayahuasca, long called the Master Medicine by the healers of the rainforest, offers an experience with the most visually powerful and mysterious of all molecules endogenous to life, DiMethyltryptamine.

Iboga, the root of an African shrub, confronts you with the voice of your own inner truth for 24 waking hours and is being used to treat Heroin addiction with relapse rates reported at a shockingly low 7%.

Why doesn’t the world embrace these technologies? Terrence Mckenna has an answer, “It takes courage to take psychedelics — real courage. Your stomach clenches, your palms grow damp, because you realise this is real — this is going to work. Not in 12 years, not in 20 years, but in an hour!”

What can the Psychedelic Experience be?
The cloth that wipes clean our lens of perception,
The compass that points true north to our life’s calling,
The lantern in the catacombs of our subconscious,
The sword stroke that unfetters the muse,
The sunlight that dispels the shadows of our past
Or simply a respite of eternity, in the fast flowing river of time.

I’ve been to the other side, stared unflinching into the eyes of my eternal soul and seen a matrix of a thousand possible destinies. I’ve witnessed the span of our current universe contained in an unceasing heartbeat, each world a single bloodcell and each contraction a new existence for life itself. I’ve learned of humility on the back of a dragon, felt the terminal extreme of heaven and hell in the marrow of my bones, died and been reborn anew. What will your psychedelic experience be?

Courage to you all.

Apr 17, 2014Jun 17, 2016

6 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics

Despite the fact that the U.S. government deems many hallucinogenic or psychedelic substances to be dangerous, classifying them as Schedule I drugs with “no currently accepted medical use,” various scientists have dared to study their effects.

What they’ve found over the years paints a startling, promising and powerful picture of potentially game-changing medicines.

LSD Mitigates End-of-Life Anxiety

The results of the first clinical study of the therapeutic use of LSD in humans in more than 40 years were published. They show that LSD can promote statistically significant reductions in anxiety for people coming to terms with their own impending demise.

Aldous Huxley famously made use of LSD as a way to ease his own passing.

Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser and his colleagues conducted the double-blind, placebo-controlled study, sponsored by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They tracked 12 people who were near the end of life as they attended LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. In his report, Gasser concluded that the study subjects’ anxiety “went down and stayed down.”

Psilocybin – Magic Mushrooms Actually Calms Certain Brain Functions

The common conception is that psychedelics do something extra to cause their effects – like increase activity, add hallucinations, promote awareness, etc.

A study that examined brain scans of people under the influence of psilocybin found that it reduces activity in certain areas of the brain. That reduction of activity leads to the drug’s effect on cognition and memory.

Psychedelics, and psilocybin in particular, might actually be eliminating what could be called the extra “noise” in the brain.

MDMA Promotes the Release of Oxytocin – Helping to Treat PTSD and Severe Social Anxiety

Before being classified as a Schedule I substance, therapists experimented with MDMA beginning in the 1970s to help reduce moderate depression and anxiety among their adult patients. Recent research primarily supported by the MAPS has continued to turn up positive results for the drug’s potential therapeutic use.

Various clinical trials and statistical research have confirmed that MDMA can successfully treat post-traumatic stress in military veterans and others.

A 2009 study offers a plausible explanation for MDMA’s effectiveness in treating PTSD. The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of 15 healthy individuals confirmed that MDMA causes the brain to release oxytocin, which is the human hormone linked to feelings of love and compassion.

MAPS recently received government approval to launch a new study examining MDMA’s potential for treating social anxiety in autistic adults. Based on the known effects of MDMA, as well as individual reports, this exploratory study will focus on enhancing functional skills and quality of life in autistic adults with social anxiety.

Psilocybin Can Help You Quit Smoking

Psychiatry Professor Matthew Johnson, who works at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presented the preliminary results of a pilot feasibility study looking at the ability of psilocybin to treat smoking addiction.

For the study, five cigarette-addicted participants underwent placebo-controlled psilocybin treatment with a psychiatrist. All five completely quit smoking after their first psilocybin session. At all followup visits, which occurred up to one year later for the first four participants, it was biologically confirmed that the participants had abstained from cigarettes.

Ayahuasca Can Treat Drug Addiction

Ayahuasca is a brew prepared with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, originally used for spiritual and healing purposes in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The vine is usually mixed with leaves containing the psychedelic compound DMT.

Gabor Mate, a medical doctor from Vancouver who is a prominent Ayahuasca researcher, contends that therapy assisted by psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular, can untangle complex, unconscious psychological stresses. He claims these stresses underlie and contribute to all chronic medical conditions, from cancer and addiction to depression and multiple sclerosis.

The results of the first North American observational study on the safety and long-term effectiveness of Ayahuasca treatment for addiction and dependence were published in June 2013 in the journal Current Drug Abuse Reviews.

All of the participants in the study reported positive and lasting changes, and the study found statistically significant improvements “for scales assessing hopefulness, empowerment, mindfulness, and quality of life meaning and outlook subscales. Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, although cannabis and opiate use did not.”

The reported reductions in problematic cocaine use were also statistically significant.

Taking DMT Can Naturally Simulate Death

DMT causes hallucinogenic experiences and is conveniently made up of a chemical compound that already occurs within the human body (as well as in a number of plants). This means our brains are naturally set up to process the drug, because it has receptors that exist specifically to do so. Cannabis is another illegal drug that occurs endogenously.

Some research based on near-death experiences points to the fact that the brain releases DMT during death. Some researchers have also conjectured that DMT is released during other intense experiences, including orgasm.

> 5 Things Scientists Have Discovered About Mind-Altering Drugs | Alter Net

Mar 20, 2014Jun 17, 2016

Psychedemia – Merging Psychedelics and Academics (Video)

From Neuroscience to Shamanic Healing and everything in between. This documentary film concisely illuminates the emerging interdisciplinary field of Psychedelic Studies in a way that is accessible, informative and inspiring.

“Psychedemia” is the first academic conference funded by an American university to explicitly focus on the risks and benefits of psychedelic experience. Ph.D’s, M.D.’s, M.A’s, graduate students and lay folk from all walks of life convened at the University of Pennsylvania to present new research addressing the historical and potential influences of psychedelics on knowledge production, health, and creativity. The four day event brought together scientists, artists, journalists, historians and philosophers from more than 10 countries for an Ivy League convocation unprecedented not only in view of its controversial subject matter, but in its unparalleled inter-disciplinary scope.

Psychedemia, the film, concisely presents the varied complexity of the emerging field of Psychedelic Studies in a way that is accessible, informative and inspiring.

Directed and Edited by two-time Emmy Award winner Vann K. Weller and Drew Knight, the documentary is being dedicated to the Public Domain to be freely used for any non-commercial purpose as an intellectual and cultural artifact.

Mar 12, 2014Jun 17, 2016

Psychedelic Science – A Mini Documentary

In Psychedelic Science, doctors, scholars and psychonauts gather to discuss the beneficial uses of psychedelics beyond simple recreational use.

It is bringing to light the research and findings that point to positive uses for psychedelics beyond the recreational realm.

I’m happy to see that our society is beginning to make forward progress in the realm of medicinal psychedelics.

These aren’t just recreational tools, these are therapeutic tools and spiritual tools that have been used for thousands of years. – Rick Doblin, PHD. Founder & Directors of MAPS

Feb 6, 2014Jun 17, 2016

Research on Psychedelics Should Be Wide Open – Scientific American

Cannabis, LSD, psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), MDMA (the “ecstasy” drug) and other psychedelic drugs all have significant potential medical uses, as illustrated in the limited research organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS) have facilitated over the years.

But the war on drugs and resulting classification of those psychoactive substances as Schedule I—meaning with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—has caused a national research blockade and left that medical potential largely untapped.

The editors of Scientific American—the 168-year-old magazine to which scientists like Albert Einstein have contributed—called for an end to the “national ban” on psychoactive drug research, noting that LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and cannabis all “had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia.”

More than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the uses of LSD for psychotherapy during the mid-’60s, and MDMA similarly complemented talk therapy through the ‘70s.

Cannabis has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism. – Scientific American

Scientific American lamented the fact that since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 declared these psychoactive drugs void of any medical use by categorizing them as Schedule I substances—and three United Nations treaties extend similar restrictions to much of the world—a catch-22 has arisen:

Federal research on these drugs is banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned. – Scientific American

High Barriers to Psychedelic Research

While the stigma that comes from Schedule I placement of these substances makes scientific research clearance and fundraising difficult, research itself is not prohibited. Scientific American’s assertion that there is a “research ban” is innacurate. For example, MAPS has been performing FDA-approved studies on psychoactive substances for years.

Brad Burge, the director of communications and marketing from MAPS said there is not an explicit ban on cannabis research either, “though there are laws in place that make doing research to make marijuana into a prescription medicine impossible, so far.”

The few privately funded studies that have looked at these compounds have yielded tantalizing hints that some of these ideas merit consideration.

Yet doing this research through standard channels … requires traversing a daunting bureaucratic labyrinth that can dissuade even the most committed investigator. – Scientific American

As a result, some psychologists are left wondering “whether MDMA can help with intractable post-traumatic stress disorder [as work with combat veterans has shown], whether LSD or psilocybin can provide relief for cluster headaches or obsessive compulsive disorder and whether the particular docking receptors on brain cells that many psychedelics latch onto are critical sites for regulating conscious states that go awry in schizophrenia and depression,” the article notes.

Additionally, while doctors in 20 states (and counting) can recommend medical marijuana, researchers aren’t allowed to properly study its effects. Scientific American notes that this leaves “unanswered the question of whether the drug might help treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, nausea, sleep apnea, multiple sclerosis and a host of other conditions.”

Consciousness and Freedom

Like many researchers, therapists and drug policy activists have been saying for decades, it is time to allow scientific researchers to do their jobs and find out what these substances can actually do—and in order for that to happen, the U.S. needs to reschedule these substances and effectively lift its research blockade.

As the Scientific American article concludes, the endless obstructions to research caused by current scheduling have meant a research standstill for Schedule I drugs:

This is a shame. … If some of the obstacles to research can be overcome, it may be possible to finally detach research on psychoactive chemicals from the hyperbolic rhetoric that is a legacy of the war on drugs.

Only then will it be possible to judge whether LSD, ecstasy, marijuana and other highly regulated compounds—subjected to the gauntlet of clinical testing for safety and efficacy—can actually yield effective new treatments for devastating psychiatric illnesses. – Scientific American

The more trusted publications like Scientific American come out and call for change, the closer we will be to medical research and scientific facts that liberate us from the medical Dark Ages when it comes to psychoactive drugs.

> Major Scientific Publication Calls on U.S. to Open Doors to Psychedelic Research | AlterNet

Dec 15, 2013Jun 17, 2016

How Do Psilocybin Mushrooms Reduce Brain Activity of the Ego? (Video)

Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, of the Neuro-psychopharmacology Unit, Imperial College London, discusses research on Psilocybin and how psychedelics could be used in therapy to help with depression, addiction, and other problems of rigid thought patterns.

Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris is one of the first researchers in 40 years allowed to investigate the effects of psychedelic drugs. He used an FMI brain imager to study the resting state activation in the brains of volunteers who had taken a small, but very intense intravenous dose of psilocybin mushrooms. What he found surprised everyone.

He found that the psilocybin caused large decreases in activity in various centers of coordination in the brain. This was exactly the opposite to what Robin and everyone else had predicted, but it is a clear and far-reaching finding. Decreasing brain activity that generates a sense of “self” allows our consciousness to expand, a process that Aldous Huxley described as opening the mind’s “reducing valve” in The Doors of Perception.

Dec 5, 2013Jun 17, 2016

Experiencing Psychosis with Digital LSD (Video)

In 2005, artist Jennifer Kanary’s sister-in-law committed suicide while suffering from a psychotic episode.

This event led Jennifer to develop Labyrinth Psychotica, an experience designed to give people more insight into how it feels to suffer through psychosis.

Empathy is key to being able to help those suffering from psychosis. Jennifer hopes that her wearable technology will:

Help people understand what it’s like to have strange thoughts and to experience different realities simultaneously.

To achieve this goal, users are strapped into virtual reality gear and transported into the mind of a psychotic girl named Jamie. The whole experience lasts twelve minutes, during which ‘normal’ reality gets increasingly intertwined with Jamie’s psychotic reality, making it more and more difficult to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not.

Experiencing Psychosis with Digital LSD

Oct 1, 2013Jun 17, 2016

Psilocybin Mushrooms Help Erase Conditioned Fear in Lab Mice (Study)

Low doses of psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms have been found to aid in removing a condition fear response in lab mice. The Lieber Institute for Brain Development conducted the study to find out how psilocybin affected fear and anxiety.

Psilocybin and Fear in Mice – Methodology Day 1

Mice were injected with varying doses (0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mg/kg) of psilocybin, 1.0 mg/kg of ketanserin (a drug that acts oppositely on the receptor which binds psilocybin), or a saline control.

– Twenty-four hours later, the animals were placed in a testing chamber and conditioned to fear a 15-second audio cue.

– The mice heard the cue, and after 30 seconds, received very brief electric shocks delivered through the chamber floor. Each mouse underwent ten trials, each separated by 210 seconds.

– After ten trials, all of the animal subjects froze in fear after the start of the 15-second audio.

Psilocybin and Fear in Mice – Methodology Day 2

The next day, the mice were placed in the chamber again and underwent the same process. Except this time, the shock was left out. The goal here was to effectively retrain the mice to not fear the audio cue and disassociate it with the shock.

– The researchers found that after only three trials, mice treated with low doses of psilocybin (0.1 and 0.5 mg/kg) no longer froze after hearing the audio cue.

– But mice injected with higher doses of psilocybin or ketanserin didn’t stop freezing until the tenth trial.

– Mice that were injected with a saline control still froze in fear after ten trials.

Power of Love in Shrooms Tied to Brain Chemistry

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The head of the research team, Dr. Briony Catlow thinks the fear removing effect of psilocybin might have something to do with the mushroom’s ability to modify and control neural circuitry.

“Memory, learning, and the ability to relearn that a once threatening stimuli is no longer a danger absolutely depends on the ability of the brain to alter its connections,” Catlow told Real Clear Science.

“We believe that neuroplasticity plays a critical role in psilocybin accelerating fear extinction.”

“It is highly possible that in the future we will continue these studies since many interesting questions have come up from these experiments. The hope is that we can extend the findings to humans in clinical trials,” Catlow told RCScience.

> Low Doses of Psilocybin Help Extinguish Conditioned Fear | Real Clear Science

Tag: Psychedelic Research