Friday, October 26, 2018

How To Have a Mystical Experience

How to Have Mystical Experience: A Research-Based Guide

Another psychedelic trip guide.  A good, simple, overall view.

Psilocybin Microdose Enhances Creativity

Study: Microdosing Magic Mushrooms Enhances Creativity, Problem Solving Abilities
... our results suggest that consuming a microdose of truffles allowed participants to create more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem, thus providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking. Moreover, we also observed an improvement in convergent thinking, that is, increased performance on a task that requires the convergence on one single correct or best solution.
Dosage used was 0.37 grams of dried fungi (sclerotia, often referred to as truffles).  This form of fungi is not as potent as common shrooms, so the equivalent shroom dose would be significantly less.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Psilocybin for Depression given Breakthrough Therapy status

Psychedelic psilocybin therapy for depression granted Breakthrough Therapy status by FDA.
This latest step from the FDA, to offer psilocybin a Breakthrough Therapy designation, is a quietly extraordinary move from the federal agency, implicitly suggesting this previously stigmatized drug may have beneficial clinical uses. 

Monday, October 22, 2018

Fluid Intelligence Improved with tDCS

Modulating fluid intelligence performance through combined cognitive training and brain stimulation shows that certain forms of transcranial stimulation appear to increase fluid intelligence.
Fluid intelligence (Gf), first defined by Cattell (1963), is the ability to cope with novelty, to think rapidly and flexibly, to see relations amongst items independent of acquired knowledge and is predictive of important life outcomes such as income, work performance, and health.

Rescheduling Psilocybin

Evaluation of psilocybin safety and abuse research shows that the drug has low potential for abuse and dependence, scientists say.

Johns Hopkins researchers suggest that if it clears phase III clinical trials, psilocybin should be re-categorized from a schedule I drug—one with no known medical potential—to a schedule IV drug such as prescription sleep aids, but with tighter control.

If Everyone Believed in Oneness

What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?
New research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those are outside of our immediate circle.

Those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, nonhuman animals, and aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same "one thing."

Psychedelics Evolved as protection from Insects

Magic Mushroom Drug Evolved to Mess with Insect Brains suggests that many recreational drugs evolved to protect plants and fungi from insects.