Requests Suggest a research topic

Cabbanis Lifestyle said:
Hello Bluelight, long time don't see!

I am turning to you guys because this is a topic that is not often discussed among high-rated chess players and I would like to enrich my perspectives, and I hope you can help.

Recently, I came across a study¹ on the effects of Psilocybin retreats on creativity, empathy, and well-being showing that the participants who consumed Psilocybe truffles showed changes in divergent and convergent thinking (ability to focus on one solution VS the ability to see the big-picture and come up with many solutions) among with the ability to feel what the other is feeling without impairing the participant's capacity to understand the other's feelings.

By chance, just after I finished reading this study I found a paper² from 2017 which followed 39 high-rated chess players and administered them four drugs:

- Caffeine;
- Methylphenidate;
- Modafinil;
- Placebo;

The study found that the players who consumed methylphenidate and Modafinil performed considerably better than the participants who were given the placebo. The researchers also discovered that the players who weren't administered the placebo also had a higher probability of losing time, because they would consider their moves more deeply, often losing track of the time.

Question: "Can Psychedelics Improve Performance In A Game of Chess?"

What intrigues me the most in this idea comes from the fact that I see the game of chess as a mirror of the player. An inexperienced player may be unable to express themselves fluently over the board, but a player that already internalized the fundamentals of the game is able to make conscious choices and from that point on, each move gradually projects the inner mind of the player externally, on the board. This is the main advantage of having a high-rated player as a participant in this study. However, what interests me the most is the potential that the game of chess has to be used as a tool for self-discovery and self-development, and for this end, having volunteers ranging from total beginners to grandmasters may illustrate how psychedelics affect the chess learning curve.

The process of learning is an intrinsic part of chess and an important part of life, if psychedelics can enhance players' performance during a game of chess assisting them to make better moves, this can shine a light on how psychedelics can help people act better in their lives.

Question: "How Can Psychedelics Help Adults Improve on Chess and Life?"

If chess is a mirror to the inner world of the player, then if the participant of a chess study consumes a psychedelic substance and plays chess for the entire duration of the experience, then we will be able to observe the effects of the substance stage by stage by observing the game and the player.

Decades ago BBC had a wonderful chess series called The Masters Game where they organized a chess tournament and had some of the world's most brilliant players play against each other. After every game, while the game was still fresh in the player's mind, the two opponents would immediately sit down with a recording crew would go move by move and they would carefully recall and register their thought processes during the game. From the spectator's perspective, you have the privilege to watch the game with the player's voice-over about what they are thinking.

You can see a clip here:




The perfect study would invite players of different ratings, who would be administered the substance of choice (LSD, Psilocybe, Mescaline, Salvia divinorum, etc...) and have the players share their thoughts and processes in real-time as they play the move

Well, I just started thinking about this, so I came here to ask for some opinions and thoughts about this project and if we have some volunteers from this forum who would like to participate in this independent study.

I have to go now, I hope this was clear, so just to synthesize quickly:

TL;DR

Study where participants play chess for the duration of a psychedelic experience to observe enhancement in cognition, learning ability and decision making;






¹Natasha L. Mason, Elisabeth Mischler, Malin V. Uthaug & Kim P. C. Kuypers (2019) Sub-Acute Effects of Psilocybin on Empathy, Creative Thinking, and Subjective Well-Being, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 51:2, 123–134, DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2019.1580804

²Franke, A.G., et al., Methylphenidate, modafinil, and caffeine for cognitive enhancement in chess: A double-
blind, randomized controlled trial. European Neuropsychopharmacology (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2017.01.006
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Snafu in the Void said:
Very interesting idea here, as a former tournament chess player and psychedelic connoisseur myself.

First, the study using stimulants, this paper talks about a lot of the benefits revolving around time pressure and reaction time, the benefits of focus within time pressure. However, it does not seem to mention the time controls used in the experiment. Blitz games? A 5 or 10 minute game is worlds different from a 2+ hour game and are approached and played differently and both induce different types of stress/focus requirement. I can definitely see an acute benefit of something like methylphenidate there, in short time controls, but not so much in long form tournament games (~3-6+ hours). Choosing to spend 1 minute or 50 minutes on a single move is often a form of strategy or intimidation in long games, time is it's own complexity added to chess in long games. I used amphetamines myself in tournaments and I mostly found it useful only for endurance and preventing focus exhaustion. Yet, time pressure was never really a factor in those games.

Like I mentioned in that other thread a chess player can burn up to 6000 calories per day while playing, and stimulants can absolutely aid in counteracting physical and mental exhaustion.


Very interesting idea.

I'd like to comment that a large part of chess is also an emotional connection to the opponent. As Bobby Fischer once stated, "winning chess is about crushing your opponent's ego" if you can achieve that, you've basically already won (barring major blunders from yourself). While playing over the board, you become hyperaware of your opponent's small, almost imperceptible body movements, their body language, their stress levels, their facial expressions, the way they breathe, the way they lean in their chair, the way they fidget with their hands, the way they write down the moves on the score pad. It's almost like poker in that sense. If you can sense your opponent's stress level or fear of losing, it gives you a boon to your own ego/confidence, and thus your own play. This will lower your own stress levels and help you focus/play better. It's actually a very beautiful complex dance of mind and body that goes on outside of the actual game itself.

While I am extremely skeptical that psychedelics would make someone play better while under the influence, I do think they could be used as an interesting training tool to improve one's play. A large part of high level chess play is high level pattern recognition, which is really psychedelic's domain.

I'll have to give it more thought but I love your idea.


This is commonplace between chess players after games. It's almost proper etiquette to go over the game afterwards with each other and talk about specific moments in the game and what each other's ideas were.



If you want to ask me anything about chess or psychedelics feel free. I was quite the talented player as a kid and won some notable national/state tournaments. I also love psychedelics and have played for fun while tripping but was never any good while high iirc.
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lonelyDude said:
not sure, I would say that if one is to go with some of the sporting professionals who have used acid on the field that it is possible but also just as possible to destroy ones ability to play.

really a roll of the dice and to be honest not needed.

im not really for perfomance enhancement in competition as a lot of people do not wish to take drugs so are at a disadvantage from the start.

the ideas of fair play and honesty come to mind though as a study if the other person knows or for friendship games why not.
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lonelyDude said:
the problem I see is that psychs develop new pathways in the brain.

chess is very much an analysis of the pathways you have already formed so you could be walking down the best game you ever had as the right pathways

light up or you could be just walking into territory that doesnt have much to do with your past chess playing at all and you will be back to playing like you never had or

at least at a serious disadvantage as you try in bring your mind back to focus on the pathways that are of use too you.

flow is really for natural physical actions I think, feeling rather than a strategic analysis.
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neversickanymore said:
can’t forget the intellectual compulsiveness that come naturally with dopamine stimulants.. clearly would be an advantage.
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what happens with onirogens, what's the stuff that happens there', if it's because of different receptor binding or if it's something else (apart from the basic REM and all that). I know that there's a delta wave inducer peptide, it will be cool to know if there's more things like that.
 
Neuroborean said:
what happens with onirogens, what's the stuff that happens there', if it's because of different receptor binding or if it's something else (apart from the basic REM and all that). I know that there's a delta wave inducer peptide, it will be cool to know if there's more things like that.
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Have a link Neuroborean
 
Noodlebitxh said:
"Unique conditions feels free to post in thread"

I've developed HS (Hydronosis supritiva) a chronic skin disorder that creates boils & abcesses anywhere on the body.

I get them in my armpits & breast mostly.

I also struggle with skin picking, self harm, body focused behaviors since I was 11.

I've got Staph infections. Belly button infections. Ear infection. All sorts of infections on my skin.

I shower every single day, I'm very clean.

Even when I'm off meth for months, I have skin problems.

I'm 22.

I'd like to be part or research, because HS is so underresearched. If there's anything of the sort count me in!
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Hello, people! Thanks for the response, I had to be away for a little but today I'm back to business.

I want to be clear about the objective of the study: to help people to navigate the psychedelic landscape using chess as a learning tool.

There are also implications for the effectiveness of chess in the integration process after the journey.

I'm going to work a little on the science of it so that we can move forward with this study. Again, thank you all for the support!
 
I think it'd be fascinating to conduct a discrete choice experiment [DCE] among Bluelight members dependent on opioids to elicit preferences for opioid agonist therapies [OAT]. Using a stated preference DCE we'd be able to i) assess the characteristics of OAT that could influence the uptake of different treatments; and ii) quantify the strength of preferences for and assess trade-offs between characteristics of OAT for Bluelight members dependent on opioids.

I think this approach could be particularly novel as I'm not sure how many healthcare-focused DCEs have been conducted sampling from an online forum?

Some food for thought.
 
Psychedelic drugs and their connection to Machine Mind Interfaces and AI (deep machine learning ect)
 
I would be interested in nootropic research and the effects on the human mind. Imo, substances like the racetam family of compounds have an incredible ability to propel us forward in terms of our mental capacity. I think they are understudied, and under used imo.

I do not often browse Drug studies, honestly. So maybe there is a bit of research in here about them, but I would be interested to see something like that.
 
An in depth study examining the very different lifestyles lived by addicts/users of the same drug.

Taking into account: socioeconomic background, geographical location, cultural factors and more.

Aim: to better understand the wide ranging needs of individuals living with addiction, with the end goal of offering a better alternative to traditional "individualistic/ customized" treatment plans.

Reason: Curing addiction would be great, but the current treatments are far from perfect. For the treatment resistant addict, recovery is no longer a viable option.There may be an unexplored middle ground in which addiction treatment aims to support and enable healthy behaviors in addicted individuals rather than aiming to cure them of addiction.

Taking on a primarily supportive role, this type of treatment would help committed individuals overcome obstacles caused by or made worse by addiction and would use a combination of therapies and mental and physical training to minimize the negative effects drug use has on a person's health and happiness.
 
Phosphor to piperadines and fentantyl having a piperadine base in its nomenclature in reference to autoimmune function. Cross reference this with coronaviruses and a huge amount of the world's fentanyl supply coming from Wuhan, China. I think there's been a second critical misunderstanding from Wuhan aside from the doctor who was the whistle-blower on COVID. I think there's a reason why the same city has such a dramatic origin in the current fentanyl crisis. Perhaps someone thought an opioid painkiller with immune system benefits attached rather than treatments which are more immunosupressant would have a hand in treating coronaviruses and it all got lost in translation. If this is true, solving this might change the direction of both COVID and endemic to pandemic fentanyl from Wuhan.

Phosphor needs to be looked at heavily too in and if itself. Phosphor based life forms rather than carbon. Im leaving this theory alone for this post because it's more about biology, but bringing viruses into understanding as being a life form under a tree of logic called Phosphor based life would be critical to these issues from Wuhan as well..

I plan on writing some research up myself in the near future. These theories have held up in all my reading so far and I want people to know.
 
On the “gateway drug” theory, consider looking at what if any effect legalization and regulation of cannabis has had on introduction and proliferation of other “harder”drugs with an emphasis on looking at if the previous illogical demonization of cannabis, resulted in increased drug use proliferation in other substances, compared to a legal market. The idea being, does exaggerating harms and demonizing a “gateway” drug discredit efforts to discourage use of more problematic substances.
 
3,5-dimethoxyamphetamine as a possible stimulant and opiate poisoning antidote.

Narcan has been shown to be less effective for this purpose, with fentanyl especially, than it was for heroin. Fentanyl has been showing up in the news a lot this year in drug busts and may have even surpassed heroin as the most commonly overdosed on opiate available on the streets in the United States so far in 2022.

1-(3,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane.png


3,5-DMA's 1-allyl-3,5-dimethoxybenzene precursor can be found in nature in both sage and mugwort, both of which are traditional folk medicines for this purpose.
 
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I’m not in this forum often, but maybe I should be! All of the suggestions are fascinating! I myself am doing a paper for grad school on the way recreational drugs AS TREATMENT are perceived by therapists and whether or not their bias plays a role

But I’m studying to be a social worker and/or sociologist (not decided which way I’m going to go yet) which is more of a “soft science”
 
i think hallucinogens have much unknown effects and many scientific objects behind them that no one has talked about.
unfortunately there are legal problems in this subject and it can't be studied in a proper way.
i am very curious about hallucinogens and types of delusions they make,reasons behind them and spiritual beings they show.i hope someday there will be a way to show them and explain them to everyone.
 
Something i really need to see a study about it,is how opioids affect osteoporosis and how much hormone(testosterone) is needed to guarantee you are not getting osteoporosis.
i suggest to plan a study of people who use opioids on different schedules and different doses.measure their testosterone value and other data related to osteoporosis.see if having a drug holiday in each week does help about it or not.taking how much opioid definitely induce osteoporosis on normal people.
 
neversickanymore said:
This is a tread where you can suggest and we can discuss research topics with the Drug Studies research community.

What could we all be looking at?
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Im going to try to make Rat ParK 2.0 by living on Burnaby Mountain as a drug war Refugee.

Hamstervan.

I dont need a study, just a thread.

Rat Park - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I was hoping to start it today, but camping gear and two zone ticket on top of the raingear,

going to try to stay anon, not obsessively though

I could can the expensive bus ticket and live on the mountain till I run out of money, then go downtown for the tasty morsels

I really need a bus ticket to pull it off, eat dowtwon or else I will just make a huge mess and get eaten by bears

Im afriad to solo camp anywhere near downtown, not that I think Ill lget attacked, just too weird lol

Ok I cant say Im not at all afraid, the idea of stanley park scares me atm, but im high on strong weed atm
 
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