A common question about the recent wave of psychedelic research is, “how do these mind-altering substances work in the brain to produce a rapid reduction of symptoms and long-lasting improvements for a variety of mental health disorders?” Beyond some scientifically well-founded hypotheses and pure speculation, we haven’t had enough experimental evidence on psychedelics to draw from to make any large claims about the mechanisms responsible for therapeutic response. MDMA and psilocybin, both showing promising results in clinical trials, are two very different drugs, in terms of how they make people feel and how they act in the brain. Is it possible there is a common mechanism in the brain underlying the therapeutic effects of all psychedelics? New findings published by Ly et al. in the […] Read More
Category: Psychedelic
There’s evidence that tripping on magic mushrooms could actually free the mind. Several studies, including two promising recent clinical trials, suggest that psilocybin – shrooms’ psychoactive ingredient – may hold the potential to help relieve severe anxiety and depression. Still, because they’re classified as Schedule 1 – meaning they have “no accepted medical use” and are illegal – it’s been pretty tough for scientists to tease out exactly what they can and can’t do. Here are a few of the ways we know shrooms can affect your brain and body: Shrooms can make you feel good. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, magic mushrooms can lead to feelings of relaxation that are similar to the effects of low doses of marijuana. Like other hallucinogenic drugs, such as […] Read More
The research conducted by Jordi Riba, a Spanish pharmacologist working at Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, revolves mostly around ayahuasca. He has a background in botany, chemistry, pharmacology and neuroscience. In an interview with the OPEN Foundation, he summarises the main findings of his work on the Amazonian psychedelic brew. In the second part, he refutes some of the controversy stirred up by a recent article about cannabis he co-authored. Jordi Riba will be among the speakers at our ICPR 2016 conference on psychedelics research. How did you wind up in the psychedelic field? I was always interested in the biochemistry of the brain, so any substances that interacted with the central nervous system had an interest for me. I did a lot of research […] Read More
Psychedelics hold enormous potential for understanding the human mind. One reason for psychedelics to be legalized is to open the gates of consciousness to wider scientific and general investigation, and to get beyond the restrictive brain. The brain is not our ally in spiritual perception. In fact it is believed by some psychologists to block full access to mind. The brain’s relation to mind seems to be like that of a slightly porous membrane, letting in a little from inside and a little from outside, but blocking a lot of it. Psychedelics seem to assist and enhance meditation on the realities of mind, including even questions of post-mortem survival. The problem is, we could get arrested. We live in an era of government interference, as […] Read More
The Jungle Prescription: Ayahuasca: —————————————-————- The Jungle Prescription is the tale of two doctors treating their addicted patients with a mysterious Amazonian medicine rumored to reveal one’s deepest self. Dr. Gabor Maté has a revolutionary idea: to treat addicts with compassion. His work as the resident doctor in Vancouver’s Portland Hotel – a last-chance destination for lifelong drug abusers – has been courageous, but incredibly frustrating. Maté hears of an ancient medicine beyond his imaginings: one that could provide his patients with a solution. Related articles 2014: Unknown lights over Vancouver, Washington 1963: The Chessmen 1962: Terry Jacks 2004: Flying triangle over Vancouver 2002: 25 witnesses observed a black object Something Is Killing Life All Over The Pacific Ocean – Could It Be Fukushima? 1974: […] Read More
By Jeremy Narby The first time an Ashaninca man told me that he had learned the medicinal properties of plants by drinking a hallucinogenic brew, I thought he was joking. We were in the forest squatting next to a bush whose leaves, he claimed, could cure the bite of a deadly snake. “One learns these things by drinking ayahuasca,” he said. But he was not smiling. It was early 1985, in the community of Quirishari in the Peruvian Amazon’s Pichis Valley. I was 25 years old and starting a two-year period of field-work to obtain a doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University. My training had led me to expect that people would tell tall stories. I thought my job as an anthropologist was to discover […] Read More