Re:Psilocybin for major depression granted Breakthrough Ther...
by mistermann on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @11:35AM
(#21639816)
> In my personal experiences with psychedelics, these drugs remove mental heuristics, they allow the mind to think unimpeded by usual thought patterns, and simply accept raw data as it comes in.
I like "removing mental heuristics" as a good way of describing what is happening at the physical level. Articulating (or, communicating with high fidelity) what happens at the experiential and emotional levels is much more tricky.
An analogy I would draw is, imagine or recall how you may have felt during a major event (usually negative), say the death of a loved one, or the ending of an important romantic relationship, or imagine how you might feel if you are on your death bed, reviewing your choices and actions throughout your life....do you have any regrets, would you have done anything different if you had it to do all over again, etc. Imagine the feeling of clarity of thought, and deep intellectual and emotional appreciation of the gravity of the situation involved in such experiences.
This is how (but only in part) I would describe my experiences with psychedelics. Of course each person experiences these things in different ways, but despite such differences, extremely deep profoundness is an extremely common takeaway.
A simpler explanation, I would say that it kind of "shocks me into reality". And you may think you know what that means, but if you haven't experienced it, you really don't. Even I don't fully appreciate the meaning of what I'm saying at this very moment; I am largely going on faith, based on a very low fidelity memory of the experiences - such is the strange, ineffable nature of these medicines.
Luckily, while it seems difficult to see into (remember) one's experiences in that world, the opposite is not true - when under the influence of psychedelics, my experience is that I can experience kind of a simultaneous existence of two states of mind: that of clarity of thought (normal biases due to heuristics largely removed), but also clear (if not clearer) memory of thoughts and emotions related to specific scenarios in the normal world. This seems to facilitate for a very productive self-help scneario, the so-called "five years of therapy or psychoanalysis in a few hours" effect that some people speak of.
I should also note that I am speaking of experimentation in the medium dose range of psilocybin. While there are other things to be discovered at the higher doses, for my purposes medium dose trips seem to be much more beneficial. YMMV.
I like "removing mental heuristics" as a good way of describing what is happening at the physical level. Articulating (or, communicating with high fidelity) what happens at the experiential and emotional levels is much more tricky.
An analogy I would draw is, imagine or recall how you may have felt during a major event (usually negative), say the death of a loved one, or the ending of an important romantic relationship, or imagine how you might feel if you are on your death bed, reviewing your choices and actions throughout your life....do you have any regrets, would you have done anything different if you had it to do all over again, etc. Imagine the feeling of clarity of thought, and deep intellectual and emotional appreciation of the gravity of the situation involved in such experiences.
This is how (but only in part) I would describe my experiences with psychedelics. Of course each person experiences these things in different ways, but despite such differences, extremely deep profoundness is an extremely common takeaway.
A simpler explanation, I would say that it kind of "shocks me into reality". And you may think you know what that means, but if you haven't experienced it, you really don't. Even I don't fully appreciate the meaning of what I'm saying at this very moment; I am largely going on faith, based on a very low fidelity memory of the experiences - such is the strange, ineffable nature of these medicines.
Luckily, while it seems difficult to see into (remember) one's experiences in that world, the opposite is not true - when under the influence of psychedelics, my experience is that I can experience kind of a simultaneous existence of two states of mind: that of clarity of thought (normal biases due to heuristics largely removed), but also clear (if not clearer) memory of thoughts and emotions related to specific scenarios in the normal world. This seems to facilitate for a very productive self-help scneario, the so-called "five years of therapy or psychoanalysis in a few hours" effect that some people speak of.
I should also note that I am speaking of experimentation in the medium dose range of psilocybin. While there are other things to be discovered at the higher doses, for my purposes medium dose trips seem to be much more beneficial. YMMV.