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motaman
old hand

Registered: 12/18/02
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Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms 2
#23358336 - 06/18/16 03:00 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/06/live-like-youre-on-mushrooms/487286/?utm_source=atlfb
Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms
Hallucinogens may help people break free of destructive thoughts and addiction. Can a “mystical experience” be had legally?
TOWSON, Maryland—Kathleen Conneally had smoked since she was 12, but one day in the spring of 2013, that changed in an instant. Conneally arrived at a lab in Baltimore that looked more like a cozy living room, with a cream-colored couch and paintings of mountains on the walls. She took a pill from a golden goblet and popped it in her mouth. Under the watch of a pair of trained guides, she began to see wild colors, shapes, and ideas. She began, for lack of a better term, to trip.
Conneally was a participant in an addiction study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, who wanted to determine whether the relentless pull of nicotine could be weakened by another drug: psilocybin—the active compound in magic mushrooms.
Conneally’s trip, the second in a series of three such “sessions,” was probably the best outcome the researchers could have hoped for. She saw herself as purple flower rising high above her earthly problems, which looked small and stupid by comparison. Even more measly and insignificant was an image of herself, huddled and puffing on a cigarette.
“Just breathe, and there’s no smoke, and no chemicals, and no problems,” she recalled herself thinking.
Leaving the lab five hours later, she was sure she would never smoke again. Before, the stresses of her life would stir an overwhelming desire for cigarettes. But now, she said, “I can just cross that off my list. I don’t have to do it.”
She hasn’t had a cigarette in more than three years.
There were 15 people in Conneally’s study, and 12 of them quit smoking—a much higher success rate than the 35 percent or so who quit through other methods. A much larger study is now underway to verify the results.
Matthew Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and the lead author of the study, was interested in psilocybin because of the success researchers had in using LSD to treat alcoholics in the 1960s. He liked that psilocybin was shorter-acting than LSD and had less societal stigma. It also has few side effects or addictive properties of its own.
Studies have already shown that hallucinogens might relieve everything from clinical depression to anxiety among cancer patients. Smoking, meanwhile, is relatively easy to study—not as deadly as, say, heroin and readily detectable with a urine test.
According to Johnson, depression and addiction both involve a narrowing of vision—a tunnel that it takes a profound experience to suck someone out of. Psilocybin, he says, can foster something called cross-talk between regions of the brain that don’t normally communicate. Cross-talk, in turn, is associated with novel ways of looking at problems. The hallucinator sees the contents of their mind spread out before them, like dusty old knick-knacks brought up from the basement and strewn out in the front yard.
They’re “dealing with stuff they haven’t dealt with in years or decades,” Johnson said. While tripping, “people reflect on their childhood, their parents, their siblings, all their relationships, their love life, their current relationships.” Meanwhile, their minds become a kaleidoscope: “Colors are brighter. The walls might be waving. There might be a halo around things,” he said.
Addiction—to cigarettes, and possibly an array of other substances—consists of much more than physical cravings. It’s social; it’s fun. At best, it’s a ritual, and at worst, a crutch. Psychedelics appear to help people go beyond physical cigarette cravings and examine what’s really making them smoke. “People will recognize this profound self-worth that they’ve dismissed,” he said. “They look at their life and see themselves as a miracle.”
One study participant, for example, saw herself as 1,000 Technicolor Andy Warhol paintings, all puffing on Marlboros, and asked herself, “do I really want to be a smoker?”
-------------------- http://heffter.org
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Morel Guy
Stranger


Registered: 01/23/13
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Re: Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms [Re: motaman]
#23358493 - 06/18/16 04:10 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Can very easily forget how to smoke.
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Brown Buffalo
paisley superstar



Registered: 09/14/13
Posts: 821
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Re: Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms [Re: motaman]
#23361088 - 06/19/16 03:05 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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your drugs sucks
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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,555
Loc: Utah
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Re: Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms [Re: motaman] 1
#23362488 - 06/20/16 12:38 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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"Live every day like you're on mushrooms"

This phrase just sounds a little... off to me. I mean, imagine living every moment of every day as if you're actually tripping on mushrooms.
Edited by nooneman (06/20/16 12:39 AM)
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topdog82
Death Spirit



Registered: 07/16/10
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Loc: California
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Re: Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms [Re: nooneman]
#23362586 - 06/20/16 01:19 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
nooneman said: "Live every day like you're on mushrooms"

This phrase just sounds a little... off to me. I mean, imagine living every moment of every day as if you're actually tripping on mushrooms.
hahahaha basic human interaction would be diffuclt hahaha
The mental picture of that is too much
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MidnightCity
Apache Rose Peacock


Registered: 08/12/12
Posts: 4,053
Loc: Florida
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Re: Live Every Day Like You’re on Mushrooms [Re: topdog82]
#23370773 - 06/22/16 06:16 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
topdog82 said:
Quote:
nooneman said: "Live every day like you're on mushrooms"

This phrase just sounds a little... off to me. I mean, imagine living every moment of every day as if you're actually tripping on mushrooms.
hahahaha basic human interaction would be diffuclt hahaha
The mental picture of that is too much
I'm imagining myself expecting to somehow be motivated by this, but instead I see myself just standing there shifty-eyed wondering if people can tell I'm tripping. Not how I want to go through life.
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