Tag: psychedelics

The “Psychonauts” Training to Explore Another Dimension

Kevin Thorbahn found himself in a hotel lobby without quite remembering how he got there. There were flashes of brilliant light, indescribable geometric patterns, and the feeling of being blasted through a gigantic stained glass window. And then he was standing in the lobby, as if checking in for a long-planned vacation. All he knew was that he was enamored with the woman behind the counter. Although “woman” wasn’t quite right—it was more like an outline of energy, a feminine purple hue.

Just as he was getting his bearings, ready to make contact with “her,” he was sucked away, the hotel lobby and entity zooming outward down an infinite hallway, until he was back to reality, staring at his prosaic furniture. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, the molecule coursing through his body, more popularly known as DMT, was already losing its effect. It had peaked for around six minutes, although his journey felt like hours. The memories of the hotel and the being behind the counter were quickly fading like a dream soon after waking.

Thorbahn wanted more time. He wanted to stay and speak with the purple being and map the hallways of that psychedelic lodge.

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California Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Legalize Magic Mushrooms, Other Psychedelics

A Democratic lawmaker in California introduced a bill Dec. 19 to decriminalize the personal use of plant-based psychedelic drugs—such as magic mushrooms, mescaline, and psilocybin—outside of school grounds for people 21 and up.

“Criminalizing drug use and possession accomplish absolutely nothing other than to fill up our prisons with people who are addicted,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) outside of the state Capitol Dec. 19.

“We need to treat drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal one.”

Wiener, the author of Senate Bill (SB) 58, said that psychedelics—a type of hallucinogenic drug—“have huge promise” when it comes to helping those suffering from mental health issues such as opioid addiction, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

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National Parks Service tells people to stop LICKING ‘hypnotoads’ for their psychedelic toxins

National Park Service officials warned visitors about a poisonous toad that can cause hallucinations and ‘powerful psychoactive’ reactions.

The Sonoran desert toad, also referred to as the Colorado river toad, is one of the largest toads in the US that has toxins that can ‘paralyze or kill dogs and other predators,’ according to the Oakland Zoo, CNN reported. 

Officials last spotted the toad with a black and white sensor camera located at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. The about 7-inch toad is also commonly found in New Mexico and Mexico can cause psychoactive effects when the toad’s toxins are smoked. 

‘These toads have prominent parotoid glands that secrete a potent toxin. It can make you sick if you handle the front or get poison in your mouth,’ NPS wrote on Facebook on October 31. ‘Please refrain from licking’

The toads make a ‘weak, low-pitched toot, lasting less than a second,’ according to the NPS. Their eyes also glow in the dark.

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Psilocybin Health Benefits and Magic Mushrooms Microdosing Guide

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic substance that can be found in a variety of different mushrooms, commonly referred to as “magic mushrooms.” Psilocybin is known to possess a spectrum of psychoactive properties, and has remained a part of medicinal and shamanistic culture around the world for thousands of years.

Cutting edge modern medical research into the various properties, health benefits, and applications of psilocybin, however, has revealed that there are many use cases for this unique biological compound outside of recreational use.

Psilocybin has recently been demonstrated in multiple clinical trials to function as an effective therapeutic aid in treating a wide variety of health disorders, including assisting with the management of depression, helping to deal with addiction, PTSD, and OCD, as well as promoting the growth of brain cells and even helping to manage the symptoms of cancer and terminal illnesses.

In this guide, we will break down the basics of psilocybin, where it comes from, and how it works, as well as proceeding to present and assess the clinical evidence that supports the therapeutic and health applications of this unique compound. Lastly, we’ll examine the potential benefits of psilocybin microdosing, a novel use of psychedelics that has been demonstrated to deliver a broad range of advantages.

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Psychedelic Drugs Change Outlook On Life As Much As Near-Death Experiences

Near-death experiences often change how someone views the world. In many cases, the person who “cheats death” ends up overcoming their fear of dying in the future. Now, a new study has found something that can mimic this life-altering experience — psychedelic drugs.

A team from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine compared the differences in people’s attitudes about death after a psychedelic drug experience versus a near-death experience not involving drugs. Overall, they analyzed survey data from 3,192 people who spoke with researchers after one of these events. Specifically, the study examined the attitudes of 933 people who had a near-death experience and 2,259 people who used psychedelic drugs to have a similar experience.

For interviews involving psychedelic drug experiences, the participants either used lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin (magic mushrooms), ayahuasca, or N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) to trigger their psychedelic episode.

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DC journos are taking shrooms for ‘performance-enhancing brain boost,’ report says

Many journalists in Washington, D.C. are taking small doses of psychedelic mushrooms to improve their performance, according to Politico.

A 2020 D.C. ballot initiative made enforcement of bans on the purchase and distribution of psychedelic mushrooms the lowest priority of law enforcement, making the substance “basically legal,” according to Politico. The substance is used recreationally in full doses as well as in smaller “microdoses,” which some believe can improve brain function.

“Microdosing mushrooms as a kind of performance-enhancing brain boost — already wildly popular among the California tech set — is now fairly common in Washington, especially in media circles,” the Politico article said.

Additionally, many journalists are “macrodosing,” or taking large quantities of mushrooms to experience a psychedelic trip, as well.

Some journalists questioned the author’s claim that microdosing was common is Washington media circles.

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The Long, Strange Relationship Between Psychedelics and Telepathy

In February of 1971, approximately 2,000 attendees at six Grateful Dead concerts at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York saw this message projected onto a large screen at 11:30 PM: “YOU ARE ABOUT TO PARTICIPATE IN AN ESP EXPERIMENT.” 

It was a test to see if people could use extra-sensory perception, or ESP, to telepathically transmit randomly chosen images to two “psychic sensitive” people, Malcolm Bessent and Felicia Parise, who were sleeping 45 miles away. Bessent was at the Maimonides Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn, while Parise slept in her apartment. 

Art prints, selected at random, were projected at the Dead show, like The Castle of the Pyrenees and Philosophy in the Boudoir by René Magritte, or a visual representation of spinal chakras. Bessent and Parise described their dreams to two evaluators, an art therapy student and a divinity student, who then judged them based on their similarities to the images shown at the concert. 

The Grateful Dead were chosen because the members of the band agreed to facilitate such an experiment, but also because those who conducted the study had determined that the audience would be especially primed for telepathic abilities, in part because of the state of mind they assumed the audience would be in. 

In a paper summarizing the project, the authors wrote, “It was apparent to observers at the concert that the majority of the people in the audience were in states of consciousness that had been dramatically altered…these altered states of consciousness were brought about by the music, by the ingestion of psychedelic drugs before the concerts started, and by contact with other members of the audience.”

This is just one example of many of the historical overlap between psychical and paranormal research, and psychedelics. Some of the most storied names from the early psychedelic research period were also investigating ESP, telepathy, and precognition. Their interest in psychedelics wasn’t tangential, but directly related, as was the case in the Grateful Dead experiment. Many thought that psychedelics could induce these experiences, or bring about states where they were more likely to occur. Of course, the CIA’s MK-Ultra program, from 1953 to 1964, also pursued mind-controlling abilities of psychedelics; a psychiatrist, Donald Ewen Cameron, used LSD to do “psychic driving” experiments on people at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute.

Today, people continue to regularly report having anomalous or paranormal experiences while on psychedelics. David Luke, a psychologist at Greenwich University, has looked at surveys of those who used psychedelics, finding that the percentage of them who said they experienced psi phenomenon ranges from 18 to 83 percent of people depending on the group. Telepathy was the most common, but precognition, or having knowledge of an event before it happens, was also widely reported. 

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Bill Moves Forward That Will Legalize Psychedelic Drugs Like DMT & Ibogaine in the Entire State of California

Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that kidnapping and caging people for possessing illegal substances does nothing to prevent use and only leads to more crime and suffering, government is still hell bent on enforcing the war on drugs. Like a crack addict who needs to find his next fix, the state is unable to resist the temptation to kick in doors, shake down brown people, and ruin lives to enforce the drug war.

Instead of realizing the horrific nature of the enforcement of prohibition, many cities across the country double down on the drug war instead of admitting failure. As we can see from watching it unfold, this only leads to more suffering and more crime. Luckily, there are cities, and now entire states in other parts of the country that are taking steps to stop this violent war and the implications for such measures are only beneficial to all human kind.

Eight years ago, Colorado citizens—tired of the war on drugs and wise to the near-limitless benefits of cannabis—made US history by voting to legalize recreational marijuana. Then, in 2019, this state once again placed themselves on the right side of history as they voted to decriminalize magic mushrooms. But this was just the beginning and their momentum is spreading—faster and stronger, toward decriminalizing all plant-based psychedelics. Then, this year, the state of Oregon decriminalized all drugs.

Now, another state is following suit, but not just with psilocybin— a bill in California is moving forward with a legalization measure for other psychedelics like mescaline cacti, ayahuasca and ibogaine.

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Microdosing Magic Mushrooms A ‘Growing Trend’ Among Some Suburban Moms

Magic mushrooms have long been considered a serious drug — the federal government puts it in the same class as heroin — but it’s catching on in the oddest place: suburbia.

Moms in communities around San Diego are “microdosing” mushrooms, which contain the mind-altering substance psilocybin, a new report says.

“It’s so necessary for some of us to be out and forward because we need to move the needle. We need to help give permission to other mothers, to fathers and other families,” said a woman identified only as Mikaela, according to the local CBS affiliate, which published a story headlined “Micro-dosing magic mushrooms: A growing trend among San Diego moms.”

In microdosing, people take a small dose in various forms, which can be pills, gummies, and chocolate. “So a dose that would give you a classic psychedelic effect would be anywhere between a gram to five, six, seven grams and so a microdose is a fraction of a gram,” Mikaela told the station.

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