It absolutely can work for depression sometimes, just be careful and intentional, and don't just talk somebody into it who may not be ready for it.
I completely disagree with the term "microdosing" though. I think this should be considered a standard dosage. Nobody calls a few ml's of cough syrup a "microdose" just because half a liter can cause euphoria, disorientation, etc. Calling this amount of mushroom a "microdose" only furthers the impression that psilocybin is a primarily recreational substance.
Not only the body weight of the person is going to matter, yields of active substance varies heavily and there is no consensus on what a microdose is. Cut-off can be as low as 0.2 grams.
Psychedelic use is correlated with an increase in neuroticism though, and not as a function of the badness of the trip. Plus in a susceptible person even 0.5g can trigger a first psychotic episode.
I find such claims of safety unfoundedly bold and honestly irresponsible.
Cocaine is both too, by the way, stops intra-nasal bleeding post-op.
People with pre-existing health and psychiatric conditions, and young people should be doubly careful. The physical and sometimes psychological effects of some substances can be dangerous, especially when mixed with other drugs (alcohol is a particularly bad one to mix with).
Psilocybin mushrooms are some of the safest psychedelics around, but at the very least be absolutely sure you got the right kind (have them identified by experts or grow your own)... and starting with lower doses, in a good set and setting, with someone more experienced than you who you like and trust is prudent. Have some quiet days to integrate the experience afterwards, maybe with a therapist.
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
[2] - https://erowid.org
And since we are talking about "depressed" people, that should qualify as a preexisting psychiatric condition.
The problem is, in most places there are no professional therapists avaiable who can (legally) work with mushrooms. And really, long term depressed persons, often have no one around, they can prepare a trip with.
Despite that, there are underground therapists who will do just that.. and even licensed therapists will sometimes do so. Discretely ask around and you might be pleasantly surprised.
"really, long term depressed persons, often have no one around, they can prepare a trip with."
There are free, online trip sitters that you can contact here:
and
This is the real sadness to me. So many people seem to start dabbling in various forms of drugs as a way to ail their problems, and if there were qualified people who could help with that (beyond merely dishing out the typical SSRIs, benzos or stimulants) I think a lot of good could be done.
These type of drugs have been shown time and time again to be massively effective in treating depression, anxiety and PTSD. It is a crime that ultra conservative socialty morals have prevented a more in depth study of their use. The fact of the matter is we treat our vets with a cocktail of drugs for PTSD that have major side effects and provide little relief. It was my experience and the experience of serval people I know that had PTSD that the use of magic mushrooms provided a substantial and sustained relief.
With natural medicine there's always people who point out the downsides, but with products made by the pharmacological industry, there's always those who defend SSRIs.
Is it even possible to gather some actual data on this issue without obvious bias either way?
The medical industry seems to have obvious motive to downplay any natural remedy as it doesn't make them money, and actively competes with their own products. On the other hand what motive would the average person have to unreasonably hype up things like the healing power of shrooms?
> what motive would the average person have to unreasonably hype up things like the healing power of shrooms?
It's something to hang a personality from.
There are a couple of drivers of ketamine's popularity for treating depression:
First, it actually seems to work astonishingly well for a lot of people (certainly way better than standard antidepressants), though not for everyone.
Second, it's a big money grab for ketamine "therapists" (I use "therapists" in quotes because many of them just sit around while you get your injection, and don't actually provide much if any therapy) who can charge $500 or more per treatment (which usually isn't covered by insurance), and people often come back for treatment multiple times a week or month for long periods of time. The cost of ketamine itself in these treatments is negligible.
An interesting development in ketamine therapy is the use of ketamine lozenges, which patients can take at home and therefore are way cheaper than having a medical team inject you with ketamine in their office.
Ego and I'm-better-and-more-enlightened-than-you attitude. You find this very often with cannabis smokers or "ents" as they fancy themselves. Also it's not that hard to find people peddling any type of dubious method : Homeopathy, crystals, acupuncture, Chakra meditation, putting up angel figurines. Often with the same amount of conviction and zealousness.
There are plenty of both good and bad trip reports.
The thing about bad trips, though, is that many people actually get a lot out of them, and find them to be therapeutic or something they learned from.
I've personally learned a lot more from my bad trips than my good trips, and ultimately found them a lot more rewarding. Not that I'd want to have a bad trip, but I found them to be a lot more insightful and those were the trips that really helped me grow, while the good trips were just fun.
Depends, it can also go the other way around.
I remember from my teenage years, that mostly the horror trips from some persons, with the scary anecdotes of people who stayed on the trip and never came of it and stayed in some asylum, were openly shared.
One of the reasons, I was very cautious and never did a mushroom trip at that time and especially not in a potential bad environments like parties, focused on drinking.
If so, I saw that one too ...
Great and intense movie. So far the only time where I can say with certainty that a movie changed my life.
- bad trips are rare if your respect set and settings, which every responsible consumer will tell you to do.
- they have been used politically in bad faith. It's only fair to not add to the stack of propaganda.
- most of bad trips are not a bad thing. It can be spectacular, but rarely dangerous, and may actually be a good thing. My only bad trip helped me grow just like my good ones. It was not pleasant, just like throwing up stale food is not, but I was mentally healthier after it. Some dark things are inside of us all, and it's good they come out, but the experience is likely not something we crave for.
She learned a valuable lesson that weekend about buying funny stuff in plastic bags from strangers.
All that said, actually waiting for FDA approval does seem a lot less risky
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/anecdotal
I think it's fair to say that medical research is not scaled up anecdotes.
While I find the anecdotes compelling. I would assume that to make multiple anecdotes evidence you'd have to at least register these anecdotes systematically, otherwise you only hear the extreme ones that people like to tell.
A temperature sensor that you know isn't desiged to work at subzero is reporting -30 consistently. It may be -40 or -20 but you know it's below zero.
Someone reporting symptom relief from depression, (which is something who's most severe symptoms are by definition subjective,) after taking psilocybin is a good data point. It without a doubt has helped.
Why, how, and discovery of caveats notwithstanding; it's something worthy of understanding, and with anecdotes (plural) consideration for use * . Just because the picture is incomplete, doesn't devalue the existing data points. Which is the thing I was trying to push back on. My data points may be weak, or noisy. But my data points are worth more than your scepticism. Full disclosure, I'm a card carrying sceptic saying that. I always think there's more to be understood, but merely devaluing the data points you currently have is not the way to go about it.
Ask questions, don't raise complaints.
* : some restrictions apply