[ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened

[Dave Sill]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 10:20 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>  *>…* *On Behalf Of *Will Steinberg
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened
>
>
>
> >…I will compile some literature regarding psychedelics…I am glad that
> they appear to be on the path to cultural acceptance and legalization,
> because I stand by my belief that, especially for people like you, not
> trying these in your lifetime is a waste of immense proportions…
>
>
>
> Hi Will, thanks for the invitation.  I respectfully decline your offer.
> For the record, I advise not going there, and while not there, staying not
> there.  My intuition tells me the risks outweigh the benefits.  As you say,
> I have not tried it, so all I have is my intuition on the matter.  I am all
> for open-mindedness and trying new experiences.  Just not this one.
>

No, this isn't an acid flashback. I just read this article:

http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/01/this-is-your-brain-on-acid-seriously-new

And immediately thought of Will and this thread.

Some highlights:

*Zach: So you were quite literally looking at, "This is your brain on
drugs" and what is our brain on this particular drug?*

*Dr. Nutt: Well the good news is no one's brain got fried, but what we saw,
we saw effects which were somewhat similar to what we'd seen with
Psilocybin, but more profound, which you might expect because LSD has a
very profound effect on many aspects of brain function. The key messages
are that LSD breaks down the normal structure of brain integration. Our
brains are trained over decades to do things exactly the same way as
everyone else and exactly the same way everyday, every hour, every minute,
every second. Those structures we thought were hardwired, but it turns out
they're not hardwired. They can be disrupted by LSD. LSD basically makes
the brain much more connected.*

*Parts of the brain which haven't been allowed to talk to each other for
30, 40 years can talk to each other again, huge amount of crosstalk. We
call this the entropic brain or the much more flexible brain. We think
that's what underlies the experiences that people have during the trip,
even got good evidence for that, but also explains why afterwards people
often feel different and better because they've been allowed to ...
actually the brain's been allowed to work in a slightly different way for
the first time, perhaps ever.*

*Zach: My understanding is that when people were closing their eyes the
part of the brain that's associated with vision was actually still active.
Could you tell me what you take away from that?*

*Dr. Nutt: Yeah, so what we showed was that the so-called ... the complex
visual hallucinations that people say under psychedelics. They close their
eyes and they say it's like films going on in front of their eyes even
though their eyes are closed. We discovered why that is, it's because
normally I close my eyes and there's very little activity in my visual
cortex and there's not activity linking the visual cortex to the rest of my
brain, but under LSD the visual cortex was connected to every part of the
brain. So there was crosstalk and, of course, crosstalk for the visual
system is visual talk so that's why you have these fascinating, complex,
interesting images.*

*Zach: If one of the big takeaways from this is that on LSD different parts
of the brain that don't usually work together are suddenly somehow
connected, what does that mean in practicality, in application? Where does
that take us? What questions should we now be asking that we have that
information?*

*Dr. Nutt: Well, I think what's fascinating about it is it doesn't just
explain the psychedelic state, but it also helps us make sense of why drugs
like LSD can change the way people behave in the long term. There were six
trials in American for LSD to be used to treat alcoholism. In fact, the
founder of AA, Bill Wilson, he got his liberation from his alcoholism, the
chains that held him to his drink were broken by a psychedelic experience.
He became a profound enthusiast for LSD. He pioneered these six trials of
using LSD for alcoholism. It works, people are much less likely to relapse
back to drinking after they've had a psychedelic experience because they
can see there's a world out there which isn't all about the bottle.*

Zach: At this conference we've heard researchers talk about some
potentially promising results using psychedelics to treat things like PTSD,
depression, anxiety. Do the brain scans that you did offer any clue as to
why psychedelics seem to offer some relief to these kind of conditions?

Dr. Nutt: Psychiatric disorders, say like depression or PTSD, exist because
people cannot disengage. They get locked into a form of thinking. Depressed
people keep thinking negative thoughts. "I made a mistake. I was a bad
mother." "I made a mistake. I was a bad person." They can't disengage those
thoughts. PTSD, people can't disengage from the memory and over time those
circuits in the brain become completely self-determining. They just go on
and on and on, even if the person wants to stop them. And they can't. I
think the disruption of circuits, the breaking down of these regimented
silos of function of the brain by psychedelics is one explanation as to why
people can escape from those underlying disorders.

Zach: Some critics might think why study psychedelics at all? We have
pharmaceuticals that treat anxiety, depression, that are specifically
designed to help with these disorders. Why open this can of worms and study
psychedelics at all?

Dr. Nutt: Yeah, that's a really important question. And the people who are
against psychedelics often say that, "We don't need it. We've got good
treatments." Well, the truth is we don't have very good treatments. Half of
all people who are treated with antidepressants don't respond to the first
dose. To get 90% to respond you usually have two or three trials. So there
are people who don't respond and never respond so there's an opportunity
for them. Disorders like alcoholism response rates are like 10% not 80%. So
there's a huge unmet need, that the first thing. Second thing is, these are
fundamental states of ordered consciousness. I would argue the greatest
goal for science is understanding the human brain. You [can't] understand
the human brain if you don't understand how the human brain is different
when it's on a psychedelic. To me, this is one of the most fundamental
questions.

Zach: Do you think psychedelics could offer a scientific glimpse into the
phenomemon of consciousness itself?

Dr. Nutt: The conclusion I've come to from our work is there are at least
two forms of consciousness. There's a consciousness which most people talk
about when they talk about consciousness, which is whether you're awake or
asleep, whether you actually know what you're doing, whether you can
actually remember what you're saying, whether you've got self-awareness,
that's one consciousness. We know what drives that. That's driven by
neurotransmitters called glutamate and GABA. And there's another form of
consciousness and this is what psychedelics, psychedelics change the nature
consciousness. Not the amount of it, but the content. It's completely
different access of brain function. That's driven by serotonin, the
serotonin receptors that psychedelics work on. That is fascinating to me. I
think that access is actually an access that scientists don't know about
because that's not the scientific access. That's the access that artists,
creative people work on, your poets, painters. Scientists think very
linearly, but this is a nonlinear kind of experiential thinking. We've
opened up, I think, the scientific study of things like creativity.

-Dave
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