Psychedelics
Tags: Culture, Psychology, Musings, Psychedelics, Science

Written by Rithika S

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”

Drugs are often portrayed in an exaggerated and hysterical manner. People freaking out, jumping out of buildings, etc.

People have been misjudging them. To date, there is no proper research on how psychedelics work. They are mainly known for the way they change the chemical structure of your brain. It has been compared to heartfulness, but while heartfulness has various papers written on their effect on the brain, psychedelics barely have any. Due to the lack of research and knowledge, they have been deceitfully declared harmful. So what are these substances and are they harmful?

What are psychedelics?

Psychedelics are hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger abnormal states of consciousness. They often profoundly amplify mind processes. They are generally considered psychologically safe and do not lead to addiction.

Then why is widely known as something harmful?

Psychedelics and the law image from vox

Up until the 1970s, psychedelics were legal and were widely used by musicians, artists, and scientists. There was a culture developed around these drugs. People used them regularly. Even though they played a major role in most young American’s life, people were not aware of how they functioned and ended up consuming them in large amounts.

This lack of information led to various accidents until finally in 1971, the government declared many of these drugs illegal. But as we know, every godly thing has its perks. While people widely knew about its disadvantages it was also considered heavenly in few cultures.

Legalization of psychedelics image from desertsun

Substance use in moderation could be a good thing. In some cultures, they are destigmatized. Like the jiujitsu community. These jiujitsu fighters consume marijuana. How can a sport be associated with drugs? These people believe that it’s all about perception and that marijuana enhances jiujitsu because it eliminates the rest of the world when they are rolling.

They believe that jiujitsu is a deep form of meditation in violence. It gives them the ability to focus on themselves and their opponent. This use of psychedelics goes way back. One can only wonder if the gods also condemned this.

Some other beliefs are in certain religions, it is said that these psychedelics like mushrooms were put by God so that humans can change their perspective about the way things happen. Humans will be allowed to explore different levels of their consciousness. There is evidence that texts from the bible when Moses came across an acacia tree which is very rich in dimethyltryptamine which is a very powerful psychedelic substance. He believed that he met God in the form of a burning bush. He believed that he had a conversation with God and this experience changed his entire life. The churches think that a lot of religious doctrines came from psychedelic experiences.

Even Hinduism has a history of psychedelic usage which dates back to the Vedic periods. In the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, it is said that sages consumed substances before rituals.

Psychedelics and religion image from the rolling stones

Much of the music of the early 1960s can be credited to LSD, it was said some of the greatest music was created in this period. It was when everyone was intrigued by these psychedelics and started research on it. But it all came to an end when it was banned by the government in the 1970s.

Most researchers believe that meditation and psychedelics have similar effects on the brain. While meditation is legal, psychedelics are not hence there is very little research on psychedelics. In the early 1970s mindfulness research began with the intention of reducing mental stress. Similarly, today psychedelics research aims to reduce distress for patients. In both these studies, people described experiencing heightened sensitivity and awareness. They said they felt more open, accepting, and grateful.

Psychedelics are dangerous because the user can get addicted. This is a very common misconception. It was once said by a famous doctor that “animals do not like psychedelics so much, if you give a rat in a cage a lever to the drug itself, and you put cocaine in one box, it will keep pressing the lever for more, till it dies. If you put LSD there the rat will press it once and then never again. If we use these drugs every day, they lose their effectiveness too. So, they are anti-addictive if anything. It gives a lot of recovery time.”

It is quite shocking when people hear that cocaine and LSD are quite different. They both have their fair share of risk rate, but the addiction rate in cocaine is very high compared to LSD. When people take cocaine they usually become intoxicated and get a jump on their emotions, they usually expect to reach a euphoric state, while LSD works in a completely different way. LSD makes one hallucinate and delusional although this seems like it could be harmful, most LSD users have spoken about experiencing the nature around them. They say that they feel more at peace and attached to their environment, sometimes they also mention experiences that changed their entire lifestyle.

Psychedelics have been proven to have very effective changes in people who are certain that they would die. For example, a stage four cancer patient probably has a few months to live. This patient like any other human finds it difficult to cope with death. But when the patient was given a dose of psilocybin, a hallucinogen, the patient was more alive than ever. The experience remained with him for months. He said that he had made peace with death and it was one the most euphoric experiences ever.

Psychedelics have helped out soldiers too. Soldiers often have to deal with the trauma of death. But research has shown that soldiers who were given pure MDMA (a hallucinogen) have these beautiful experiences where they completely accept death and all the trauma from wars. They explained that they have had profound benefits. This has even helped people who have extreme PTSD, people who have been suicidal, or people who suffer from severe anxiety.

Image from newscientists

The secret to having a good trip

Some people have a bad trip when they take it for the first time, others probably 50 or 100 times later. These bad trips are instant insanity. One might never be able to recover. People have often compared taking drugs to playing Russian roulette. It is not necessarily true that everyone goes through horrific experiences consuming these. Most researchers believe that there are steps to having a good trip. A good atmosphere with preferably your favorite genre of music. Most people prefer silence, darkness, and solitude.

Should these substances be illegal? Why is the government criminalizing psychedelic usage?

Firstly criminalizing something that we are not completely aware of is absurd. People live with the misconception that these drugs are addictive. Recent studies have shown that the rate at which people get addicted to sugar is higher than that of psychedelic drugs.

Modern medicine could extend lifespan through medications but they don’t provide solutions for the traumatic experiences of having a terminal illness. The acceptance of this trauma has been achieved through mindfulness and psychedelics.

While mindfulness takes years and years of practice, psychedelics take a few minutes in the right setting. Research shows that a single pill of psilocybin helped people get rid of negative thoughts and brought kindness and openness to difficult emotions. This has helped a lot of people in the long run.

Psychedelic retreat image from labnews

While living our day-to-day lives, like slaves to the economy we often define ourselves as what other people perceive us. Our brain accumulates memories, creates impressions, and beliefs based on what we observe. Eventually, these memories and beliefs create who we are and what we have done. Sometimes we fall into our own identity and feel trapped, the beliefs that we have created become the source for our ego.

Most of us spend our lives sleepwalking into daily chores. We tend to isolate ourselves from the real world and let gadgets take over. This type of extreme separation bound us to the walls we have mentally created. Eventually, this leads to depression and anxiety.

Trip of your life image from the guardian

What if there was a way to let go of everything. What if we could see the world with a fresh pair of eyes and allow a new sense to take over. Psychedelics do this to us. It allows us to let go of ourselves and create these new impressions of the world around us. We immerse ourselves in our surroundings. Feel as though everything comes alive and realize that the emotions that once deranged us from our happiness were just a short mental phenomenon. Psychedelics disrupt the network in our brain which activates when we become self-focused.

Self-focus in today’s world is much needed. We can deny as strong as we want that we are driven by materialism around us. But the harsh reality is that everything we do is so we can own something. We need to extend our sense from us to around us. Psychedelics help us to expand our idea of ourselves and bring us to greater harmony with our environment.

“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”

― Terence McKenna

Sources:

· How Psychedelic or Hallucinogenic Drugs Work

· Alcohol and Drug foundation

· Psychedelic psychotherapy clinical trial depression

· Pharmacological reviews

· Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness

· Sam Harris on the virtues of Psychedelics and MDMA