Tag: magic mushroom

Parents have started using LSD and ‘magic’ mushrooms because they say it helps them be more present with their kids

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In September, the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society hosted a “Plant Parenthood” event to educate moms and dads on how psychedelics can make a person a better — and more present — parent.

Psychedelics have been shown to help people battling depression and anxiety by disrupting ruminative thought patterns, and enabling people to connect more deeply to the world around them.

A number of parents at the “Plant Parenthood” event said that psychedelics have helped them to overcome childhood trauma and keep it from interfering with how they relate to their own children now.

When Nina’s baby turned 1 last year, Nina quit her job working as a therapist. She realized she could no longer cope, let alone help her patients get through trying times.

Nina was still battling postpartum depression. When she held her daughter, she wanted to feel at peace the way she had always envisioned. But, instead, she was awash with dark memories of her traumatic childhood and sexual assault.

That’s when Nina started microdosing with LSD and mushrooms. It’s also when she finally started to feel some relief.

“I realized how much I was reliving my childhood trauma through my own child,” Nina, who asked to use just her first name to protect her family’s privacy, told Insider. “It was affecting my mothering skills. I wanted the cycle of trauma to end with me.”

Nina, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, grew up homeless and often felt responsible for her mother’s hardships. She felt guilty that her mother endured a difficult pregnancy with her, and she constantly worried about her mother’s financial struggles.

Now, the 31-year-old microdoses a couple of times a week in sub-perceptual doses — very low amounts that don’t cause a user to experience a traditional “trip.” The precise amount is determined based on a person’s tolerance and body weight.

Nina said the experience has helped her to let go of some of her pain and refocus energy towards her daughter.

The mother of one is hardly alone in examining how psychedelics could help her become a better parent. Insider met Nina at a September event in Brooklyn called “Plant Parenthood,” which was an opportunity for moms and dads to learn more about the benefits of psychedelics.


The Brooklyn Psychedelic Society hosted an event last month to teach about the benefits of psychedelics. Jodie Love

Organized by Brooklyn Psychedelic Society, a group that educates about psychedelics, the event drew about 30 parents. Panelists, which included a poet, a church founder, and a lactation consultant, spoke from personal experience about how psychedelics can help people to overcome trauma, battle addiction, treat anxiety and depression, and simply feel more present.

Psychedelics help to disrupt ruminative thought patterns

Research into how psychedelics can be incorporated into a therapy setting began in the 1990s.

Psychedelics have been shown to disrupt the way people who are distressed think, and allow them to break out of depressive thought patterns. Psilocybin, which is similar in chemical makeup to LSD,targets the “default mode network” in the brain, and essentially causes that part of the mind to go “offline,” author Michael Pollan wrote in his book, “How to Change Your Mind,” which was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal.

In turn, the user is able to more effectively connect to other people and the world around them.

“All these disorders involve uncontrollable and endlessly repeating loops of rumination that gradually shade out reality and fray our connections to other people and the natural world,” Pollan wrote. “The ego becomes hyperactive, even tyrannical, enforcing rigid habits of thought and behavior — habits that the psychedelic experience, by loosening the ego’s grip, could help us to break.”

More than 30 million Americans are psychedelic users, according to a 2013 study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. That figure has remained consistent since the 1970s, Matthew Johnson, associate professor of psychiatry at the John Hopkins Center for Psychedelic Research, told Insider.

Johnson said that many of his patients who have used the mind-altering drugs report feeling more present and having a better ability to refocus their priorities, especially when it comes to familial relationships.

Despite the purported benefits, Johnson doesn’t encourage the use of these substances to help with improving parenting techniques. However, he confirmed that the drugs are physiologically safe for most people: They’re non-addictive and it’s nearly impossible to overdose.

People with heart conditions, however, run the risk of experiencing elevated blood pressure and cardiac arrest. The drugs are also unsafe for people who have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other psychotic disorders, because they can lead to a psychotic break.

That being said, anybody who takes a high enough dose can have a “bad trip” which, though relatively rare, can lead to potentially dangerous behaviors. “I have a file folder full of cases where people have gotten into accidents or killed by the police because they were out of it and broke into a neighbor’s house,” Johnson said. Anxiety and depression can be exacerbated, even though there are anecdotes stating the opposite.

Experts across the board stress the importance of parents hiring a babysitter to care for their children while they’re using psychedelics.

A number of parents at the Brooklyn event agreed that the drugs have helped them to relate to their children in a deeper way.

“Psychedelics have cleared the path between me and my son,” Nicholas Powers, a poet and journalist, said during the event. “This helps me listen to him.”

Others had similar experiences to Nina, saying that psychedelics allowed them to overcome issues from their childhoods, and keep them from interfering with their relationships with their children.

This was the case with Danny Allan, a 42-year-old filmmaker and father of one. Allan said he and his wife take a “hearty” dose of mushrooms once every few months. They aim to mimic indigenous shamanic ceremonial practices and used Ayahuasca, a drink used for spiritual purposes by Amazonian tribes, once during a retreat in Peru.

Allan said using these drugs has helped him to work through the issues he had with his own mother growing up. As a child, Allan often felt that his mother was detached and that having children disrupted the lifestyle she actually wanted. When he was a teenager, Allan’s mother changed gears and became more religious, and more controlling.

As a result of his experience, Allan said he was at times smothering to his 8-year-old son, because of his mother’s aloofness. At other times, he was detached in response to her controlling behaviors.

He said psychedelics have helped him to find an even ground with his child.

“When you do that internal work with the help of psychedelics, you can heal from childhood wounds,” Allan said, “and make your parenting decisions with love and empathy.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-psychedelics-like-mushrooms-lsd-help-parents-relate-to-kids-2019-10

A Growing Push To Loosen Laws Around Psilocybin, Treat Mushrooms As Medicine

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A growing body of research suggests psychedelic mushrooms may have therapeutic benefits for certain conditions. Now a movement seeks to decriminalize them.

Douglas rattles around a collection of glass jars in the storage closet of his Denver apartment. They’re filled with sterilized rye grains, covered in a soft white fungus — a mushroom spawn. Soon, he’ll transplant it in large plastic bins filled with nutrients such as dried manure and coconut fiber.

Over the course of two weeks, a crop of mushrooms that naturally contain psilocybin, a psychoactive ingredient, will sprout. The species he grows include psilocybe cubensis.

“I mean, it’s a relatively quiet thing to do. There’s just lots of waiting,” says Douglas, which is his middle name. He didn’t want to be identified because this is an illegal grow-and-sell operation; psychedelic mushrooms were federally banned in 1970, along with several other hallucinogens.

“Mushrooms are really easygoing, especially psilocybin,” he says. “They kind of just grow themselves.”

Denver is at the forefront of a national movement that seeks to access these mushrooms, largely for medicinal use. On Tuesday, voters are weighing in on a ballot measure to decriminalize them. And while that may sound ambitious, a campaign in Oregon is gathering signatures for a ballot measure in the 2020 election and seeks to legalize mushrooms with a medical prescription for use in approved clinics.

In Iowa, Republican lawmaker Jeff Shipley recently proposed two bills: one removing psilocybin from the state’s list of controlled substances, and the other legalizing it for medical use. And last year, a campaign in California did not get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The group that led the campaign hopes to try again in 2020, according to their Facebook page.

For Douglas, it’s a sign that change is on the horizon, one that could have implications for his business, which he says he runs for the supplemental income, but also because he believes mushrooms are beneficial.

“Cultivating psilocybin and offering medicine to people to change their lives, that will be my mission, or my way of serving others,” he says.

With his DIY setup of glass jars, large plastic bins and a pressure cooker for sterilization, Douglas can produce up to $1,000 of mushrooms a month. He learned how to do this thanks to Internet videos. He purchased his first mushroom spores online and received them in the mail; companies legally are allowed to sell spores since they don’t contain psilocybin.

If the Denver ballot measure passes, adults 21 and older who are caught with psilocybin mushrooms, or even growing them for personal use, would become the “lowest law enforcement priority” for local police. Plus, the city and county of Denver would be barred from spending any money to prosecute psilocybin cases.

The notion that state laws around mushrooms could be loosened up, much like they have been for cannabis, is not without controversy. Matthew Johnson, who has spent the past 15 years researching psychedelics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says decriminalization of illegal drugs is generally a good thing, but he wouldn’t support policy that encourages people to use psilocybin without professional supervision.

“(This therapy) needs to be done by appropriately trained and credentialed medical and psychological professionals,” he says.

Research suggests that psilocybin is not addictive, causes few ER visits compared to other illegal drugs and could be used to treat a number of ailments. Johnson believes the most promising research is on treating anxiety and depression in cancer patients. In a study he conducted with other researchers at Johns Hopkins, he says they found even a single dose can positively affect an individual for several months.

“It’s really unprecedented in medical history to see effects for depression that are caused by a single medication,” he says.

Preliminary research has been conducted for other potential uses, including curbing nicotine addiction and for treatment-resistant depression. And while Johnson believes psilocybin could one day become a groundbreaking treatment, he’s emphatic about the potential risks involved.

“The most common side effect is the so-called ‘bad trip,’ ” he says. “(It) can be well-managed in a medical research setting, but that sometimes leads to dangerous behavior when out in the wild.”

Under the influence of psilocybin, people can panic and put themselves in unsafe situations; there have been fatalities, he says.

Johnson says he thinks that, in as little as five years, research on psilocybin will lead to the first medication approved by the Federal Drug Administration. Once that happens, he thinks the government will have to remove it as a Schedule 1 drug — a substance like heroin that the DEA considers to have “no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Until then, Deanne Reuter, the assistant special agent in charge at the DEA’s Denver office, says the agency will continue prosecuting cases of psilocybin possession and trafficking.

“Any controlled substance is a concern,” she says. “It’s obviously on a Schedule 1 for a reason.”

Reuter admits they don’t see many cases of psilocybin trafficking. Typically, they’ll bust a drug dealer carrying several types of narcotics, including mushrooms.

“The trafficking of psilocybin seems to be like a small, niche kind of community,” she says.

Douglas would agree. He has little competition and knows most of the people he sells his product to. Still, he knows the work he does it risky.

“With decriminalization and stuff I can operate a little bit more freely, have to worry less,” he says.

If the Denver ballot measure passes, it wouldn’t protect someone like him, who’s selling mushrooms for profit. Still, he says it’d be a step closer to a future where he can freely provide people with something he believes in.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/07/720828367/a-growing-push-to-loosen-laws-around-psilocybin-treat-mushrooms-as-medicine

New study shows that use of psychedelic drugs does not increase risk of mental illness

On By A.P.In Anxiety, Depression, Drugs, LSD, lysergic acid diethylamaide, mental health, mental illness, Neuropsychiatric Disease, psilocin, Psilocybin, psychedelic, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, psychologist, psychology1 Comment

An analysis of data provided by 135,000 randomly selected participants – including 19,000 people who had used drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms – finds that use of psychedelics does not increase risk of developing mental health problems. The results are published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Previously, the researchers behind the study – from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim – had conducted a population study investigating associations between mental health and psychedelic use. However, that study, which looked at data from 2001-04, was unable to find a link between use of these drugs and mental health problems.

“Over 30 million US adults have tried psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of health problems,” says author and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen.

“Drug experts consistently rank LSD and psilocybin mushrooms as much less harmful to the individual user and to society compared to alcohol and other controlled substances,” concurs co-author and neuroscientist Teri Krebs.

For their study, they analyzed a data set from the US National Health Survey (2008-2011) consisting of 135,095 randomly selected adults from the US, including 19,299 users of psychedelic drugs.

Krebs and Johansen report that they found no evidence for a link between use of psychedelic drugs and psychological distress, depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts.

In fact, on a number of factors, the study found a correlation between use of psychedelic drugs and decreased risk for mental health problems.

“Many people report deeply meaningful experiences and lasting beneficial effects from using psychedelics,” says Krebs.

However, Johansen acknowledges that – given the design of the study – the researchers cannot “exclude the possibility that use of psychedelics might have a negative effect on mental health for some individuals or groups, perhaps counterbalanced at a population level by a positive effect on mental health in others.”

Despite this, Johansen believes that the findings of the study are robust enough to draw the conclusion that prohibition of psychedelic drugs cannot be justified as a public health measure.

Krebs says:

“Concerns have been raised that the ban on use of psychedelics is a violation of the human rights to belief and spiritual practice, full development of the personality, and free-time and play.”

Commenting on the research in a piece for the journal Nature, Charles Grob, a paediatric psychiatrist at the University of California-Los Angeles, says the study “assures us that there were not widespread ‘acid casualties’ in the 1960s.” However, he urges caution when interpreting the results, as individual cases of adverse effects can and do occur as a consequence of psychedelic use.

For instance, Grob describes hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, sometimes referred to as “a never-ending trip.” Patients with this disorder experience “incessant distortions” in their vision, such as shimmering lights and colored dots. “I’ve seen a number of people with these symptoms following a psychedelic experience, and it can be a very serious condition,” says Grob.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290461.php

Psychedelic mushrooms put your brain in a “waking dream,” study finds

On By A.P.In Anxiety, Depression, mental health, mental illness, Neuropsychiatric Disease, psychedelic, psychedelic renaissance, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Psychological Science, psychologist, psychology, Steven Weihing1 Comment

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Psychedelic mushrooms can do more than make you see the world in kaleidoscope. Research suggests they may have permanent, positive effects on the human brain.

In fact, a mind-altering compound found in some 200 species of mushroom is already being explored as a potential treatment for depression and anxiety. People who consume these mushrooms, after “trips” that can be a bit scary and unpleasant, report feeling more optimistic, less self-centered, and even happier for months after the fact.

But why do these trips change the way people see the world? According to a study published today in Human Brain Mapping, the mushroom compounds could be unlocking brain states usually only experienced when we dream, changes in activity that could help unlock permanent shifts in perspective.

The study examined brain activity in those who’d received injections of psilocybin, which gives “shrooms” their psychedelic punch. Despite a long history of mushroom use in spiritual practice, scientists have only recently begun to examine the brain activity of those using the compound, and this is the first study to attempt to relate the behavioral effects to biological changes.

After injections, the 15 participants were found to have increased brain function in areas associated with emotion and memory. The effect was strikingly similar to a brain in dream sleep, according to Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a post-doctoral researcher in neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and co-author of the study.

“You’re seeing these areas getting louder, and more active,” he said. “It’s like someone’s turned up the volume there, in these regions that are considered part of an emotional system in the brain. When you look at a brain during dream sleep, you see the same hyperactive emotion centers.”

In fact, administration of the drug just before or during sleep seemed to promote higher activity levels during Rapid Eye Movement sleep, when dreams occur. An intriguing finding, Carhart-Harris says, given that people tend to describe their experience on psychedelic drugs as being like “a waking dream.” It seems that the brain may literally be slipping into unconscious patterns while the user is awake.

Conversely, the subjects of the study had decreased activity in other parts of the brain—areas associated with high level cognition. “These are the most recent parts of our brain, in an evolutionary sense,” Carhart-Harris said. “And we see them getting quieter and less organized.”

This dampening of one area and amplification of another could explain the “mind-broadening” sensation of psychedelic drugs, he said. Unlike most recreational drugs, psychotropic mushrooms and LSD don’t provide a pleasant, hedonistic reward when they’re consumed. Instead, users take them very occasionally, chasing the strange neurological effects instead of any sort of high.

“Except for some naïve users who go looking for a good time…which, by the way, is not how it plays out,” Carhart-Harris said, “you see people taking them to experience some kind of mental exploration, and to try to understand themselves.”

Our firm sense of self—the habits and experiences that we find integral to our personality—is quieted by these trips. Carhart-Harris believes that the drugs may unlock emotion while “basically killing the ego,” allowing users to be less narrow-minded and let go of negative outlooks.

It’s still not clear why such effects can have more profound long-term effects on the brain than our nightly dreams. But Carhart-Harris hopes to see more of these compounds in modern medicine. “The way we treat psychological illnesses now is to dampen things,” he said. “We dampen anxiety, dampen ones emotional range in the hope of curing depression, taking the sting out of what one feels.”

But some patients seem to benefit from having their emotions “unlocked” instead. “It would really suit the style of psychotherapy where we engage in a patient’s history and hang-ups,” Carhart-Harris said. “Instead of putting a bandage over the exposed wound, we’d be essentially loosening their minds—promoting a permanent change in outlook.”

Thanks to Steven Weihing for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/07/03/psychedelic-drugs-put-your-brain-in-a-waking-dream-study-finds/