Thursday, November 23, 2017

Psilocybin & Meditation Study Making Progress

The researchers at Johns Hopkins have finally accumulated their target of 40 long term meditators not previously exposed to psilocybin.

“There was a participant in the study who had had an extensive, extensive practice, like tens of thousands of hours of meditation, which is an incredibly extreme amount,” said Frederick Barrett, PhD at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “And she indicated after her psilocybin session that she relived all of the peak experiences she had ever had meditating. Wow.”

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Largest Psilocybin Dose in an FDA Study

This is the personal account (i.e. trip report) of a participant in a phase I clinical trial for psilocybin.  If I were to map this onto a Buddhist progress of insight map, it sounded like the person was dealing with the unsatisfactory states in the first two trips and in the 3rd trip described here finally broke through into equanimity.

I was pure awareness, but there was no awareness. I was pure consciousness, but there was no consciousness. There was a sense of pure wisdom and knowledge, but there was no wisdom or knowledge. It was a state of perfection, but there was no perfection. There was no desire. There was no emotion. There was no bliss. No oneness. No unity consciousness. There was nothing. This state was a perfect state. This state, which was not a state, was above all.

The trial used three increasing doses, 0.30 mg/kg, 0.45 mg/kg, and 0.60 mg/kg.  For a typical 70 kg person, this would equate to a dried mushroom dose of around 3.5 grams, 5.3 grams, and 7.1 grams.  This person can claim the "highest" dose because they were heavy, around 98 kg.

And this was an FDA study.  There is an unpublished UNM study that Rick Strassman was involved with that used even higher doses of 0.90 mg/kg and 1.10 mg/kg, for reference our 70 kg person would be taking around 11.2 and 13.8 grams of dried mushrooms, some prodigious doses.  It should be noted that at the highest dose they noted that a "confusional state" was induced.

Friday, November 3, 2017

How To Meditate

I've added some material on How To Meditate over at the other blog, also linked here at the top right.  The material is the equivalent of a small pamphlet, and includes the best advice I could come up with for a do-it-yourself-er.

Mushroom Retreats in Jamaica, Costa Rica, Netherlands

Inside the growing world of all-inclusive magic mushroom retreats

For the past decade or so, there have been retreats in South America for ayahuasca, Ibogaine escapes in Africa, and peyote spirit quests in the United States. However, until recently, there’s been nothing similar for magic mushrooms.

But, in places like Jamaica, Costa Rica and Holland, where the fungus was never banned, opportunistic fungus-lovers and entrepreneurs have finally begun to offer mushroom retreats — hallucinogenic trips for everyone from plumbers to psychonauts that allow people to explore the benefits of psilocybin in safe, legal, vacation-like settings.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Psilocybin and Depression

Magic mushrooms may 'reset' the brains of depressed patients.  In a small trial, treatment resistant depression was lifted for several weeks after 2 sessions with psilocybin.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Consciousness and the Self

The Nature of Consciousness: A Conversation with Thomas Metzinger on Sam Harris' Waking Up podcast.

Intellectual discussion on topics relating to consciousness and the self  between two long time meditators, neuroscientist Sam Harris and neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger.