Well, duh.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/10/ps ... index.html

Mystic mushrooms spawn magic event
Findings could lead to treatments for addiction, depression

NEW YORK (AP) -- People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks -- all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s.

Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.

Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, the study's lead author.

But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't."

Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.

Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression.

It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said.

Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology.

Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said.

Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark.

"I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done" to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.

Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics. While they have been studied by scientists in the past, research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of the drugs during the 1960s, Griffiths said. Some work resumed in the 1990s.

"We've lost 40 years of (potential) research experience with this whole class of compounds," he said. Now, with modern-day scientific methods, "I think it's time to pick up this research field."

The study volunteers had an average age of 46, had never used hallucinogens, and participated to some degree in religious or spiritual activities such as prayer, meditation, discussion groups or religious services. Each tried psilocybin during one visit to the lab and the stimulant methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin) on one or two other visits. Only six of the volunteers knew when they were getting psilocybin.

Each visit lasted eight hours. The volunteers lay on a couch in a living-room-like setting, wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward.

Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a "complete" mystical experience, compared with four of those getting methylphenidate.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say "they can't possibly put it into words," Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either "moderately" or "very much."

Finally they are researching these things instead of just spreading bullshit propaganda about it. I'd like to see more studies on hallucinogens as well as on marijuana.

i've never gone beyond marijuana. but that's interesting.

i always wondered what binaural would sound like if i was tripping.

Those people that had a mystical experience on Ritalin must really like classical music. I shouldn't laugh though, because that would probably be me.

Those people have mystical experiences organizing the pens on their desk by model and color.

I get really sleepy whenever I do mushrooms these days, so the spiritual side to it seems to have really dropped off. I just want to doze and listen to instrumentals. I don't think I've actually fell asleep though.

Definitely a life changer for me. I used to be such a prick and get into fights and all that shit until i took mushrooms. Now i'm a pretty laid back dude who just loves being alive. Mushrooms for everybody

LSD changed quite a few of my beliefs, not radically but it affected me enough to question a number of different realities that had formed in my head. In fact, I'd say it was a lot easier for me to approach situations or people from many more different angles. I always felt really good about myself after taking acid. But I got a little carried away with it, I was taking it every couple of weeks for about 6 months (which really isn't anything at all) and I convinced myself of things that I now know are just not true. But I'd still take it again.

I have some mushrooms in my freezer right now too, I'm sort of waiting to take them. I might take them by myself in a more controlled setting, but taking acid alone I'd have to dose very, very low. Its good to try psychadelics with a positive intention, like to reward yourself for completing a really difficult task, or to get yourself emotionally involved in something important that is happening in your life. That's my opinion, I've also used them rather wrecklessly for better or worse. I could go on and on with the experiences I've had, and I'm sure most people could too.

LSD>Shrooms

especially if you really want to blow your mind... Shrooms are pretty tame compared to acid, imo

and yeah... in high school when everyone started trippin and smokin weed, it was amazing how well everyone started to get along... all the little crowds turned into one big partying crowd... i'll never forget the time i smoked hitters with one of the biggest redneck-cowboy-hat-wearin-assholes in the bathroom at school... couldnt stand each other without drugs... good times

this thread has done nothing but make me want to try mushrooms.

Personally, as much as I've always entertained the idea of diving into other drugs/chemicals/plants etc. (not for recreation, for escape...long story), I can't see myself ever going past my semi-regular pot habit. Psychidelics open up the gates to hell, man.

Still, it's refreshing to see the research being done.

very interesting. i still would never do mushrooms though.

That really depends on how you approach it. In the right setting it's much more like heaven than hell (presumably).


Nah. LSD had a bit too much of an "edge" for me to ever really get into it. Mushrooms are so much more mellow and easy to vary on the intensity. Take a small cap for a little buzz. Take 3 grams for a mind-blowing trip. Good stuff.

My buddy sent me a link to this study the other day. Brought us back to some good times in college. Might have to arrange a camping trip and indulge a little for old times sake again sometime soon.

Haha. This is funny.

Mushrooms could help people kick their drug habit? I don't even know where they came up with that one.

I would really enjoy watching someone who suffers from an anxiety disorder take mushrooms, too. That is the worst idea I have ever heard. Talk about a complete freak out.

Some of the early scientific studies of LSD (in teh 50's and early 60's) involved treating alcoholics, in situations not unlike the one described in the story. They were VERY effective, much more so than AA or any other treatment.

Psychedelics are not addictive. In fact, they almost repel the user from doing them since their effects can be quite frightening, especially when used just to "get high". They have been researched to treat addictive and compulsive behaviors because they open a user's mind to self-reflection, and a lack of self-awareness and reflection is often at the root of self-destructive behaviors.

It really makes perfect sense.

Perhaps in controlled doses the effects are different. Every time that i have eaten mushrooms (a lot) they were very potent and we always ate an eighth of an ounce.

It was usually pretty fun. If i was having a lot of anxiety, though, it would not have been fun AT ALL. It would have been miserable. I've always found that mushrooms will enhance existing anxiety.

As far as curing alcoholism with mushrooms, i really need to read into that. I have never heard of such a thing. At first glance, it sounds like craziness...treating an addiction with a hallucinogenic drug. But i can see how occasionally tripping on mushrooms could cause a decrease in someone's urge to drink, now that i think about it.

I'm all for people taking shrooms, although I'll agree that they are definitely not for everybody. I kept an article from Monday's paper on the subject, I'll post it tomorrow when I have it at hand.

Found it online, it was from Tuesday's paper which explains why I couldn't find it

Source

Magic mushrooms can induce mystical effects, study finds
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 11 July 2006

A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today.

Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, have for the first time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the laboratory. They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported for centuries. They are "descriptively identical".

And they argue that the potential of the hallucinogenic drugs, ignored for decades because of their links with illicit drug use in the 1960s, must be explored to develop new treatments for depression, drug addiction and the treatment of intolerable pain.

Anticipating criticism from church leaders, they say they are not interested in the "Does God exist?" debate. "This work can't and won't go there."

Interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs is growing around the world. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists debated their use at a conference in March for the first time in 30 years. A conference held in Basel, Switzerland, last January reviewed the growing psychedelic psychiatry movement.

The drug psilocybin is the active ingredient of magic mushrooms which grow wild in Wales and were openly sold in London markets until a change in the law last year.

For the US study, 30 middle-aged volunteers who had religious or spiritual interests attended two eight-hour drug sessions, two months apart, receiving psilocybin in one session and a non-hallucinogenic stimulant, Ritalin, in the other. They were not told which drug was which.

One third described the experience with psilocybin as the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes and two thirds rated it among their five most meaningful experiences.

In more than 60 per cent of cases the experience qualified as a "full mystical experience" based on established psychological scales, the researchers say. Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

The effects persisted for at least two months. Eighty per cent of the volunteers reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction. Relatives, friends and colleagues confirmed the changes.

The study is one of the first in the new discipline of "neurotheology" - the neurology of religious experience. The researchers, who report their findings in the online journal Psychopharmacology, say that their aim is to explore the possible benefits drugs like psilocybin can bring. Professor Roland Griffiths of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, said: "As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time.

"I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what's called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people."

A third of the volunteers became frightened during the drug sessions with some reporting feelings of paranoia. The researchers say psilocybin is not toxic or addictive, unlike alcohol and cocaine, but that volunteers must be accompanied throughout the experience by people who can help them through it.

A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today.

Forty years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, have for the first time demonstrated that mystical experiences can be produced safely in the laboratory. They say that there is no difference between drug-induced mystical experiences and the spontaneous religious ones that believers have reported for centuries. They are "descriptively identical".

And they argue that the potential of the hallucinogenic drugs, ignored for decades because of their links with illicit drug use in the 1960s, must be explored to develop new treatments for depression, drug addiction and the treatment of intolerable pain.

Anticipating criticism from church leaders, they say they are not interested in the "Does God exist?" debate. "This work can't and won't go there."

Interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs is growing around the world. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists debated their use at a conference in March for the first time in 30 years. A conference held in Basel, Switzerland, last January reviewed the growing psychedelic psychiatry movement.

The drug psilocybin is the active ingredient of magic mushrooms which grow wild in Wales and were openly sold in London markets until a change in the law last year.

For the US study, 30 middle-aged volunteers who had religious or spiritual interests attended two eight-hour drug sessions, two months apart, receiving psilocybin in one session and a non-hallucinogenic stimulant, Ritalin, in the other. They were not told which drug was which.

One third described the experience with psilocybin as the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes and two thirds rated it among their five most meaningful experiences.

In more than 60 per cent of cases the experience qualified as a "full mystical experience" based on established psychological scales, the researchers say. Some likened it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

The effects persisted for at least two months. Eighty per cent of the volunteers reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction. Relatives, friends and colleagues confirmed the changes.

The study is one of the first in the new discipline of "neurotheology" - the neurology of religious experience. The researchers, who report their findings in the online journal Psychopharmacology, say that their aim is to explore the possible benefits drugs like psilocybin can bring. Professor Roland Griffiths of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, said: "As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time.

"I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what's called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people."

A third of the volunteers became frightened during the drug sessions with some reporting feelings of paranoia. The researchers say psilocybin is not toxic or addictive, unlike alcohol and cocaine, but that volunteers must be accompanied throughout the experience by people who can help them through it.