Detrimental Effects Of Psychedelics

[Feeble Dave]

This is an important question for me.

Do you think that psychedelics (especially 5-MeO-DMT) can have a detrimental effect on:

- Your ability to learn. Especially to study.

- How you interact with people. Especially, 1) getting the actual/right meaning of what people are trying to communicate. 2) being able to hold conversation at a normal pace, and not being too slow as to appear tired or non responsive. 


@Leo Gura I'd really appreciate your input. Also, thank you so much for your work.

 

[Elisabeth]

36 minutes ago, Feeble Dave said:

- Your ability to learn. Especially to study.

I don't know about psychedelics, but I know, that your overall emotional state has a significant effect on your ability to study - if you're depressed or distracted by strong emotions (or tired from processing them), your memory and concentration gets so much worse. So if you're dealing with integrating some psychedelic insights, the emotional challenge could be part of it. 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Elisabeth

[jse]

Depends on the psychedelic.  For example, MDMA (and to some extent psilocybin) temporarily depletes the brain's serotonin, which affects mood, sleep, concentration, etc.

[outlandish]

I used to worry about these same questions a lot when I was younger.

From everything I've seen, learned and experienced over the years, if you stick to responsible doses at responsible frequency (maybe no more than once a month) of the true psychedelics, there is nothing to worry about. Even if you were to abuse them a bit, you still don't have much to worry about. The proper psychedelics have a very high safety profile, and their use is even correlated with increased mental health.

It's possible to have increased awareness after using PDs, which can be a minor stumbling block in terms of social situations, or learning, studying. You may start to notice things that you never did before, because you've stopped filtering them out, and this can be distracting in conversation sometimes. The same kind of thing can happen when you begin to meditate. But this is strictly "in your head", there is no physiological damage from using the proper psychedelic drugs.

Many highly intelligent people (esp. in Silicon Valley) use psychedelics at least occasionally. The brightest and most creative people I know use psychedelics regularly, or at least have used them before. Psychedelics didn't make them smart, it's more of an indication that psychedelics aren't holding them back. And they're probably getting a slight edge in terms of creativity and insight.

The empathogens like MDMA may cause some very minor amount of neurotoxicity, so their use should be extremely occasional IMHO. I tend to avoid using MDMA, but I know it can be a great heart-opener like no other, so there's a tradeoff.  The dissociatives (which some people consider psychedelic), particularly DXM, seem sketchy to me. I don't touch them, but many people do and are doing just fine.

If you use drugs like 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, LSD, mushrooms in safe settings, with controlled doses at fairly well spread out intervals, you should have no problems with the kinds of things you're talking about. Pay attention to how they affect you, so you can make that call for yourself as they do affect everyone differently, and there's no final word on this kind of thing. But the concern of your mind being dulled by them somehow, which seems intuitive, turns out to be a non-issue IMO.

Of course all the things you mention will be problems while you're actually high, but I presume we're talking about long-term effects here.

Nice profile pic BTW @Feeble Dave lol

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@Feeble Dave All those things are enhanced when they're used properly.

[Natasha]

@Feeble Dave I'm no neuroscientist, but would imagine any psycodelic would have capacity to gradually alter brain chemistry to some degree. The side-affects may not be noticable right away, but down the road they quite possibly may be.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Natasha

[jse]

5 hours ago, Natasha said:

I'm no neuroscientist, but would imagine any psycodelic would have capacity to gradually alter brain chemistry to some degree. The side-affects may not be noticable right away, but down the road they quite possibly may be.

Early symptom:  inability to correctly spell "psychedelic".

[Natasha]

6 hours ago, jse said:

Early symptom:  inability to correctly spell "psychedelic".

I don't use psychedelics. Was just a symptom of my at times careless spelling 

Edited February 3, 2017 by Natasha

[abrakamowse]

10 hours ago, jse said:

Early symptom:  inability to correctly spell "psychedelic".

3 hours ago, Natasha said:

I don't use psychedelics. Was just a symptom of my at times careless spelling 

 

Nothing is happening in reality so... it's all good!

[Feeble Dave]

Thanks for your replies. @outlandish that was especially helpful, thank you.

[Arman]

I think the overuse/misuse of psychedelics when I was younger has definitely had detrimental effects on my brain. Memory in particular, but it is hard to describe the exact effects. Specifically one experience with an analogue ayahuasca was pretty traumatic to the old nogin' and took quite a while to recover from. I believe most of these issues could have likely been avoided or reduced if I took them less often, allowed my mind, body and brain more time to rest, and was taking better care of my health in general. I was also young, around 18, and I think the brain is simply still developing too much at that time. Personally I would suggest to wait until early 20s for most folk. 

It is hard to say what the culprits were. LSD and Psilocybin seem, in my experience and observation of others, to be the least likely to have much detrimental effect on the brain. I would not recommend 25i, DXM, and would really limit the use of MDMA to once or twice a year as a suggestion. I would avoid research chemicals; there are so many and I'm sure many can be useful and fun, but I suggest that it's wiser to stick to more time tested entheogens. 

Part of the issue with those who promote psychedelics is that there is a kind of informational backlash against the disinformational propoganda of the 60s, in which people were told outright blatant lies about the dangers of drugs. The knee-jerk reaction to this by a lot of people is to now tout these drugs as being perfectly safe, when in fact, this is not always the case and this kind of fanaticism can be harmful. It makes me cringe when people say that absolutely everyone should try psychedelics and that it'll make them a better person. I used to have this opinion when I was younger and thought all the scary stories were just made up. Unfortunately as the years passed, I both personally experienced the repercussions and have seen friends have psychotic breaks or severe incidences that have left long term issues. 

Personally I would not take back my experiences because I feel that I'm a better person for them and the benefits have seemed to have outweighed the negatives. Still, I would not recommend the path I took to others. I was young and foolhardy.

When used correctly, safely and responsively, they have the power to massively awaken consciousness and accelerate self-development. 

Still, they must be treated with incredible amounts of respect. 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2017 by Arman