Saturday, July 27, 2013

Clinical Perspectives in Preparing and Managing High Dose Psilocybin Sessions

Another video from the Psychedelic Science conference 2013, Clinical Perspectives in Preparing and Managing High Dose Psilocybin Sessions: Insights from Johns Hopkins.

Various Recommendations:

  • "surrender to" and accept the experience
  • the TLO mantra: "trust, let go, be open"
  • move forward/into rather than avoiding
  • let go of self-consciousness; allow catharsis
  • be the witness
  • the breath is always with you
  • ask it what it has to teach you
  • convey love and acceptance
  • allow yourself to be devoured, dissolved
  • "enter into it and look out through its eyes" - Ann Shulgin
  • welcome difficulty
  • "bring it on" (to scary thoughts)
  • boomerang - you will come back

Thoughts about Microdosing: variable effects

Stumbled on this the other day:  Effects of ultra-low doses of morphine, naloxone and ethanol on morphine state-dependent memory of passive avoidance in mice.

This study points out the sometimes unusual dose response curves which prompts the old saying, the dose makes the poison.  And people's individual metabolism varies quite a bit.

Few would have guessed a result such as in this study, 1mg/kg of ethanol in mice improved memory recall, for example.  This would equate to around a quarter to a half of a normal drink in adults.

A review of the literature indicates that, for several drugs and chemicals, the effects of nanogram doses are the opposite of the effects of milligrams, because different doses have different sites as well as mechanisms of actions. In conclusion, from the above results one may suggest that, in determination of the dose-response of at least some drugs, the study of the effects of doses much lower than two orders of magnitude of the minimum effective dose are warranted.


What Can Buddhist Meditation Teach Us about Psychedelic Science?

Johns Hopkins researcher Katherine MacLean speaks at the Psychedelic Science conference (more videos) in What Can Buddhist Meditation Teach Us about Psychedelic Science?