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Anti-depressive effect: psychological or neurochemical?

Flickering

Flickering

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Apr 11, 2011
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We've all heard reports, or experienced first-hand, that various hallucinogens have powerful anti-depressive effects, including but not limited to: LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, DXM, salvia, ayahuasca, and of course ibogaine. In my own experience, I've tended to experience a clear head - no grinding and churning, no hopelessness, no unexplained lethargy or exhaustion, for a week following LSD use and two weeks after even mild doses of mushrooms or ayahuasca. But, it's unreliable. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, and I wonder if I simply feel so good after due to psychological reasons; I got to do something I actually wanted, the experience itself was cathartic, the perspective it showed me was refreshing. Certainly on the less amazing or euphoric trips, there doesn't seem to be any afterglow whatsoever.

How do you think the mechanism works?

I've been diagnosed with unipolar melancholic depression and PTSD, and prescribed Pristique, which is an SNRI. After looking up the side-effects and contraindications, and after a friend pointed out that I'm not suicidal and that GPs shouldn't prescribe anti-depressants especially on the first damn meeting, I decided not to take the pills.

Instead, I'm going to put myself on a strict regime of acid every weekend. (Would do mushrooms, but they're not available this time of year.) Mostly low doses, but I want to see what it does to the tolerance and afterglow. So in a couple of months I'll report back on how well it worked.

If it doesn't, well, fuck damnit I'm sick of being like this. I know it's risky but I'm going to take ibogaine next. And if THAT doesn't work then yes, I'll be a good patient and do as the doctor says.
 
can't answer your question

but can ask you a different one, if you're determined to self medicate with psychs why not low dose AMT ?
Its what it was originally intended for after all.

as for your question: i would agree that a euphoric trip can clear the cobwebs for a while, but a difficult trip doesnt always have the same effect.
That could suggest that the after-glow is just something that happens when you've has some serious fun ?

I suspect there is a little more to it, but its a theory worth considering.
 
Last edited:
Depression is a neurodegenerative disorder.
Both NMDA-antagonists and serotonin agonists can induce neurogenesis.
 
WSH said:
Depression is a neurodegenerative disorder.
Both NMDA-antagonists and serotonin agonists can induce neurogenesis.
Click to expand...

do you have references where I can read about these topics?
I have read that ketamine is correlated with development of new neural pathways but i think that was on NPR. would love some scholarly articles on the subject. esp depression.
don't worry if you don't have full-texts on hand. NCBI links are fine.
 
I think regular use of psilocybin definately does something to the brain to help depression.
 
Problem with AMT is finding some, I'm afraid. It's a rare thing these days.

Ismene said:
I think regular use of psilocybin definately does something to the brain to help depression.
Click to expand...

I'd love to do that instead - it's a crisper trip, more compact, the peak much more even and consistent. On acid I come up hard in an hour, and from that point it gradually declines on a constant slope. Come winter, perhaps I'll have the chance. On the downside, high-dose shrooms are much tougher to handle. I did have one experience of no afterglow from psilocybin, that was from a high-dose trip.
 
twelvesevndi said:
do you have references where I can read about these topics?
I have read that ketamine is correlated with development of new neural pathways but i think that was on NPR. would love some scholarly articles on the subject. esp depression.
don't worry if you don't have full-texts on hand. NCBI links are fine.
Click to expand...

Ketamine reverses the damage done by stress:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20724638

Ketamine increases neurogenesis:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322304006754
 
I think psychological/neurochemical is a bit of a faux distinction. The two are so intertwined as to make a black & white distinction between the two usually mostly useless. Based on the (anecdotal) stuff I've read regarding micro-dosing LSD, there does seem to be some relatively reliable mood lift from even sub-threshold doses, however the subjective experience of higher doses seems to have pretty reliable positive effects on mood and personality (see Johns-Hopkins psilocybin long term follow up study, i'll come back & post a link a little later if i have time, but its not hard to find on the MAPS website) as well. I'd wager that there is value in both the low & higher doses, but whether that has more to do with purely pharmacological actions in the former or the experiential value of the latter is unclear. Think its probably a safe bet to say a little of both :)

Ketamine quite clearly has reliable anti-depressant effects at sub-anesthetic doses, i'm not sure if there is any empirical evidence suggesting anything is gained by increasing the dose, but given the amount of research in the field currently i'm sure we'll see something to that effect. I'd really like to see (or possibly run) a study on the R & S isomers of ketamine to see if either is preferable for depression. That also negates the ethical concern of putting depressed people in a control (placebo) group for the study, which definitely goes in the pro column :) I've not tried R ketamine, just the racemate & the S isomer, couldn't really tell if there was a difference in the post experience mood lift with either of those. Suppose i'll have to do them both a few more times & keep an eye towards that ;)
 
Flickering said:
Problem with AMT is finding some, I'm afraid. It's a rare thing these days.
Click to expand...

Ah - I didn't realise you were in Oz flickering, it's sold in all the online shops in the UK.

I'd love to do that instead - it's a crisper trip, more compact, the peak much more even and consistent.

There's always the option to grow your own if you can get spores legally in Oz. It's not as hard as you'd think.
 
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