Psilocybin-(4-PO-DMT) is one of the many
forms of DMT made in nature(as DMT in found in more living things then
not). DMT is found in the human brain naturally, DMT is a molecularly
close to Serotonin and Melatonin, it is believed to be produced in your
brain every night or during near death experience or death of the
Body(vehicle).
The Largest Organism on Earth Is a Fungus
The blue whale is big, but nowhere near as huge as a sprawling fungus in eastern Oregon
HIDDEN GIANT:
A small outcropping of honey mushrooms on the surface hide the largest
known organism on Earth, a fungus infesting the woods of eastern Oregon. Image: USDA FOREST SERVICE, PACIFIC NORTHWEST RESEARCH STATION
Next time you purchase white button mushrooms at the grocery store,
just remember, they may be cute and bite-size but they have a relative
out west that occupies some 2,384 acres (965 hectares) of soil in
Oregon's Blue Mountains. Put another way, this humongous fungus would
encompass 1,665 football fields, or nearly four square miles (10 square
kilometers) of turf.
The discovery of this giant Armillaria ostoyae in 1998
heralded a new record holder for the title of the world's largest known
organism, believed by most to be the 110-foot- (33.5-meter-) long,
200-ton blue whale. Based on its current growth rate, the fungus is
estimated to be 2,400 years old but could be as ancient as 8,650 years,
which would earn it a place among the oldest living organisms as well.
A team of forestry scientists discovered the giant after setting out
to map the population of this pathogenic fungus in eastern Oregon. The
team paired fungal samples in petri dishes to see if they fused (see photo below),
a sign that they were from the same genetic individual, and used DNA
fingerprinting to determine where one individual fungus ended.
In Know your Mushrooms Ron Mann
investigates the miraculous, near-secret world of fungi. Visionaries
Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans lead us on a hunt for the wild mushroom and
the deeper cultural experiences attached to the mysterious fungi.
The oldest and largest living organisms
recorded on Earth are both fungi. And their use by a new, maverick breed
of scientists and thinkers has proven vital in the cleansing of sites
despoiled by toxins and as a “clean” pesticide, among many other
environmentally friendly applications.
Combining material filmed at the
Telluride Mushroom Fest with animation and archival footage, along with a
neo-psychedelic soundtrack by The Flaming Lips, this film opens the
doors to perception, taking the audience on an extraordinary trip.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_84.htm
Psychedelic Mushrooms for Depression
Psilocybin exposes the foolishness of pretenses,
By opening the curtains of the mind, you meet deep truth and your inner self;
allowing you to be okay with who you really are.
Once you have accepted both the good and bad sides of truth and survived,
You are free, you are truly alive.
-
The skin is so thin, the current of blue streams that are your veins flow rapidly beneath it and are begging to burst free.
“Freedom will be yours soon, and you will flow wildly and freely, the way you are meant to be,” you say.
The knife is too dull though. Breaking
out the hunting knives, you try knife after knife. Not a single one
penetrates your skin. You give up, not on the act alone, but on the
method. Your mission still remains. If you cannot slit, you will saw. It
was ignorant of you to think this would be painless anyhow, foolish
beyond belief. But you do not remember how to believe, you just pine to
bleed. Taking one last look at your loyal dog, you start sawing. Take a
second to take this in, just like the blade serrating your skin.
–
The above is actually an account of my
own experience with depression, after two years of failed
anti-depressants, various herbs and counselors. Up until the very night I
was introduced to the healing benefits of psilocybin, I slept with a
knife in the drawer next to me. I sat on the floor at three AM night
after night in the dark, knife in my lap. I do not know how much longer I
could have gone. Lyme disease had taken me to the edge, to the gap
between the walking dead and the already dead. The valley of the shadow
of death.
Psychedelic mushrooms saved my life, and I
know I am not the only one. The next day, after experimenting with the
mushrooms, I took the knife downstairs and never looked back. My
depression is non-existent now, along with the countless anti-depressant
pills that used to flood my night stand. I can truly stand here today,
and say with every ounce of my being, that psilocybin saved my life.
- – -
Alright, let’s get to the alarming facts
right off the bat –although quite frankly, they are all pretty alarming.
With more than 350 million people suffering from depression across the
globe, it is a no brainer that antidepressants are the number one drug
prescribed by doctors [1].
“The truth is that even
experts aren’t really sure how antidepressants work. There’s just a
whole lot we don’t know about how the brain functions. [5]”
Perhaps that last sentence should be,
“There’s just a whole lot we don’t know about how the antidepressants we
prescribe so freely function.” How does anyone develop a pill without
knowing how it will work in the brain? Do they just take their best
guess and throw chemicals together, hoping it works when they use humans
as guinea pigs? Admitting you do not know everything is a highly
respectable act, except when you still continue to alter the brains of
human beings without knowing the consequences after doing so.
The answer to how psychedelic mushrooms
containing Psilocybin function in the brain to treat depression is far
more simple and clear cut. There is an actual answer, as opposed to a
slew of “educated” guesses. In depressed individuals, there is over
activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. Psilocybin possesses the
power to switch off the over activity in this part of the brain. [7]
Then, rather than increasing levels of serotonin in the
brain, Psilocybin binds to serotonin receptors and mimics them, causing
the brain to function as if it has more serotonin without actually
altering the levels themselves. This last part is a crucial defining
fact in deciding between the safety of antidepressants and psychedelic
mushrooms in treating depression
The Healing Power of Psychedelic Mushrooms
“The
man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the
same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure,
happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance
yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things,
of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries,
forever vainly, to comprehend.” –Aldous Huxley, ‘The Doors of
Perception: Heaven and Hell’
Magic Mushrooms Do The Opposite of Anti-Depressants, But That May Be Why They Work
"I felt so much lighter, like something had been released."
PETER DOCKRILL
8 JAN 2018
Psychedelic therapy is going through something of a revival right now, and we may now know how one such hallucinogenic drug is seemingly able to alleviate symptoms of depression.
Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, has long been known to deliver therapeutic effects to people with depression, and researchers think this is because the drug helps to revive emotional responsiveness in the brain.
What's so remarkable is this kind of mechanism is actually the opposite effect of a major class of antidepressants used to treat the condition, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
"Psilocybin-assisted therapy might mitigate depression by increasing emotional connection," neuroscientist Leor Roseman from Imperial College London explained to PsyPost.
"[T]his is unlike SSRI antidepressants which are criticised for creating in many people a general emotional blunting."
The new study examined 20 patients diagnosed with moderate-to-severe treatment-resistant depression, to investigate what kinds of effects psilocybin would have on their brain activity and depressive symptoms.
A previous study by some of the same researchers had shown that the drug seems to 'reset' brain circuits in depressed people, with patient-reported benefits lasting up to five weeks after treatment.
This time around, the team wanted to examine what impact psilocybin might have on the amygdala – the part of our brain that helps process emotional reactions, including fear – in addition to its effects on participants' depression.
Before taking the drug, the participants underwent fMRI brain scans, then, in two separate sessions one week apart, they took doses of psilocybin, before again being scanned via fMRI the morning after receiving the second dose.
During the fMRI scans, the group were shown images of faces with either fearful, happy, or neutral expressions, and the researchers wanted to investigate what effect these faces had on the participants' amygdala after taking psilocybin.
After the experiment, the majority of patients reported that the psilocybin had eased their depressive symptoms, with almost half the group still seeing benefits from the treatment five weeks later – in line with the kinds of benefits other depression studies using the drug have shown.
More intriguingly, the fMRI scans showed the drug heightened activity in the right amygdala, with increased responses to both fearful and happy faces – and the increases to fearful faces were predictive of clinical improvements in depressive symptoms one week after the experiment.
What's striking is the alleviation of depression occurs from emotional receptivity being enhanced – the opposite of SSRI antidepressants.
"It has been proposed that decreased amygdala responsiveness to negative emotional stimuli under SSRIs is a key component of their therapeutic action," the researchers explain, "but the present study's findings suggest that this model does not extend to the therapeutic action of psilocybin for [treatment-resistant depression]."
The researchers don't know for sure why that is, but after the experiment the patients reported "a greater willingness to accept all emotions post-treatment (including negative ones)" (original emphasis), whereas they felt their previous depression treatments worked to "reinforce emotional avoidance and disconnection."
"I felt so much lighter, like something had been released, it was an emotional purging, the weight and anxiety and depression had been lifted," one participant said.
"I have felt a sense of acceptance; more acceptance of agony, boredom, loneliness," commented another.
"[A] willingness to try to accept the negative times – but also an appreciation of the wonderful times."
The team acknowledges their study has a number of limitations, including a small sample size, and a lack of controls – including one for SSRIs.
But they say their next trial will try to address those shortcomings, as well as looking further into how this mysterious compound alleviates depression – while seemingly forcing people to confront their emotions, whether good or bad.
"I believe that psychedelics hold a potential to cure deep psychological wounds," Roseman told PsyPost.
"[A]nd I believe that by investigating their neuropsychopharmacological mechanism, we can learn to understand this potential."
The findings are reported in Neuropharmacology.
Scientists decry ‘the worst case of scientific censorship since the church banned Copernicus’
LONDON (Reuters) – The outlawing of drugs
such as cannabis, magic mushrooms and other psychoactive substances
amounts to scientific censorship and is hampering research into
potentially important medicinal uses, leading scientists argued on
Wednesday.
Laws and international conventions dating
back to the 1960s have set back research in key areas such as
consciousness by decades, they argued in the journal Nature Reviews
Neuroscience.
“The decision to outlaw these drugs was
based on their perceived dangers, but in many cases the harms have been
overstated,” said David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at
Imperial College London.
In a statement accompanying the Nature
Reviews paper, he said the laws amounted “to the worst case of
scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of
Copernicus and Galileo”.
“The laws have never been updated despite
scientific advances and growing evidence that many of these drugs are
relatively safe. And there appears to be no way for the international
community to make such changes,” he said.
“This hindering of research and therapy is motivated by politics, not science.”
Nutt and Leslie King, both former British
government drugs advisers, and co-author David Nichols of the
University of North Carolina, called for the use of psychoactive drugs
in research to be exempted from severe restrictions.
“If we adopted a more rational approach
to drug regulation, it would empower researchers to make advances in the
study of consciousness and brain mechanisms of psychosis, and could
lead to major treatment innovations in areas such as depression and
PTSD,” Nutt said.
Nutt was sacked as a government adviser
in 2009 after publicly criticizing the government for ignoring
scientific advice on cannabis and ecstasy. He has conducted a small
human trial using psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic
mushrooms.
Psychedelic mushrooms reduce authoritarianism and boost nature relatedness, experimental study suggests
Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, could make people feel more connected to nature and less likely to endorse authoritarian views, according to new research from the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London.
The new study, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, is the first to provide experimental evidence that psilocybin treatment can lead to lasting changes in these attitudes.
Study authors Taylor Lyons and Robin L. Carhart-Harris write that “our findings tentatively raise the possibility that given in this way, psilocybin may produce sustained changes in outlook and political perspective, here in the direction of increased nature relatedness and decreased authoritarianism.”
Psychedelic drugs have been associated with anti-authoritarian countercultures ever since the hippies of the 1960s.
A previous study that surveyed 1,487 individuals found that people who had used classic psychedelics like LSD and magic mushrooms were more likely to report that they enjoyed spending time in nature and were more likely to see themselves as a part of nature.
Another study that surveyed nearly 900 people found that psychedelic drug use was associated with liberal and libertarian political views, higher levels of openness to new experiences, and greater nature relatedness.
But Lyons and Carhart-Harris wanted to know whether psilocybin use actually promoted anti-authoritarianism and nature relatedness — or whether psilocybin use was a consequence of it.
The new study compared 7 participants with treatment-resistant major depression who had received two oral doses of psilocybin to 7 healthy control subjects who had not received psilocybin.
The researchers surveyed the participants about their political views and relationship to nature prior to the psilocybin sessions, then again at the 1 week and 7–12-months follow-ups.
Participants who received psilocybin treatment showed a significant increase in nature relatedness one week later and the change was sustained at the 7–12-month follow-up. “Before I enjoyed nature, now I feel part of it. Before I was looking at it as a thing, like TV or a painting… [But now I see] there’s no separation or distinction, you are it,” one participant told researchers.
The participants who received psilocybin treatment also showed a significant decrease in authoritarian attitudes, which was also sustained at the follow-up. The researchers also observed a reduction of depressive symptoms in these participants.
There was not a significant pattern of changes among the participants who had not received psilocybin.
Unlike the previous cross-sectional studies, the experimental design of the new research allows Lyons and Carhart-Harris to draw some inferences about cause and effect. However, the study’s small sample size is an important limitation. It is also possible that psilocybin treatment decreased authoritarianism and increased nature relatedness indirectly by reducing depressive symptoms.
“It would be hasty, therefore, to attempt any strong claims about a causal influence due specifically to psilocybin at this stage,” Lyons and Carhart-Harris caution in their study.
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