They basically said it enables you to see yourself from a stark, no-bias-filter perspective that makes you a better person and/or helps you get rid of the rose-tinted (or, conversely, negatively-tinted) lens that you usually view life with - let you see things from an un-skewed perspective. (Which is why the fat, lazy guy suddenly kicked into a higher gear and began exercising, eating well and climbing the career ladder.) Another woman wrote in the comment section that after doing shrooms, she suddenly became a happier and better person and her husband said the big change was overnight. YMMV, of course.
So, how often does this actually happen? Most of the time? Half?
If literally half or more of people who have taken psychedelics turned into a better person, you’d be seeing a shit-ton of self-actualized people walking the street. But you don’t. Because usually they don’t. Anecdotal evidence is utterly worthless. Witness my own worthless anecdote:
I took a couple of psychedelics in my unruly youth. All they did (other than the transient effects) was make me realize that I didn’t particularly care for psychedelics. They sure didn’t get me to lose weight .
Anecdotes can tell you relatively little. However there is a lot of interesting research on the use of pychedelics, especially psilocybin, for treating a range of disorders including depression and anxiety and early results appear to be pretty promising as per this brief summary.
Are you talking about psilocybin? Lysergic acid diethalymide? Lysergic acid amide? 3,4 methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine? Ketamine?
2Ci? 2Cb? 2Ct?
Dimethyl triptamine? Muscarine? Chloroform?
I have taken all of the above, and more. Each has its own unique experience.
There is no common ground; the question is impossible to answer.
I personally feel the large number of doses of LSD used in my youth had a positive effect on me, but without any way to objectively measure that… the question is still impossible to answer.
The myth that psychedelic drugs create enlightened people in a higher state began with the hippie movement in the sixties. I believe the motto was, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” What they actually do is create hallucinating, stoned people. LOL
Long long ago I read Timothy Leary, he being a proponent of psychedelics from a psychological/pharmaceutical point of view. He claims that psychedelics achieve a state that can also be achieved through intense long term meditation (eastern religions), and from trauma. He describes the state as akin to “unplugging”, where everything that matters to you doesn’t really matter any more (my words) and one is open to new points of view. Really REALLY open (loss of “self”). This would be apart from the hallucinocenic effect.
I can say that I have experienced this effect through trauma, and spoken to others who have had the same experience.
As to if this makes someone a better person? Perhaps, if in the process they abandon old negative thoughts and patterns.
One salient point was also made, the effect is temporary. If, while someone is in the “unplugged” state, they make a conscious deliberate effort to establish new pattern (exercise, lose weight), once they slowly “plug back in” they will retain the new patterns. However, if someone does not make an effort to establish new patterns, once they “plug back in” they will go back to being the same old self. So, the danger, like with so many pharmaceuticals, is some form of addiction and repeated use to replicate the good feelings.
I don’t know if treating a disease falls within the OP’s, “better person and/or helps you get rid of the rose-tinted (or, conversely, negatively-tinted) lens that you usually view life with - let you see things from an un-skewed perspective”. I got the impression that the OP is referring to the claim that LSD puts one in an intellectually higher and enlightened state.
Besides your link, I only found one other article related to using LSD for medical/psychiatric purposes, and the results stated seemed to indicate that they were pretty random. The research contained in your link seemed to have more concrete and consistent results, but isn’t that just replacing one substance with a more powerful and unpredictable one?
Argueably you will be a better person than a semi-psychotic person, after just 8 or so hours later when the effects wear off.
Few psychedelics are phyically addictive. Most are not even “fun”, more like “an interesting visit” into the mind.
I guess you could get addicted to the experience, but people get “addicted” to sking, chess, anything that catches their interest. Is that really addiction?
* I will add the caveat that MDMA is, indeed, fun, as are the numerous varieties of phenethylamines in its family group (maybe not all, 2Ci, I am looking at you)
But I have done a bunch and have no addiction. My relationship with alcohol is far worse.
My worst ever bad trip was on MDMA. When you take psychedelics reasonably often you get to expect a percentage of bad trips; and learn how to manage them for a few hours until you recover or sufficiently come down. It is like a massive panic attack, albeit often with hallucinations as well.
So my suggestion that MDMA et al are always “fun” is false.
Yes, as expected, the “it’s not addictive!” crowd chimes in. The words I used were “some form of addiction”, which I intend to be understood as using the term in the colloquial sense (skiing, chess, etc.).
I understand your point of view, but having had some experience in this arena, the word “addiction” has a somewhat specific meaning - in at least the colloquial use - when it comes to substance use/abuse.
One of my nephews has been micro-dosing LSD and psilocybin mushrooms for a few years and is very happy with the results. That said, I haven’t noticed any change in him.
That’s a kind of reductive way to talk about psychological dependencies. Of course there’s a broad gulf between somebody who jokes about being a “chocoholic” or being on a “see food” diet and somebody with an eating disorder, but addiction and dependencies can be traumatic and disruptive whether or not an addictive drug like nicotine or cocaine are actively involved.
The brain is real real good at drawing potentially unfortunate links between [literally any activity] and [good feels or fewer bad feels].
So… yeah. Of course somebody could become addicted to psychedelics. And of course it would be a “real” addiction.
The anecdotes in the Reddit thread (which were, of course, not a truly representative sample) said psychedelics made them realize there were major changes in their lives they needed to make, or made them have a happier/more accurate outlook on life.
This thread reminds me of an old joke about cocaine:
I said to a guy, “Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful,” and he said, “Because it intensifies your personality.” I said, “Yes, but what if you’re an a**hole?”
Last week’s episode of Nova tackled this very subject. They presented several people who had conditions like severe alcoholism and depression apparently cured through the use of psychedelics.
I think there’s a big difference between using them recreationally, and using them in a controlled environment under a doctor’s supervision.