Are psychedelics and schizophrenia not really such a bad duo?

[Help?!?!]

^Ha something similar happened to me with extremely high dose IM DMT. Talking about it with DMT is sort of a cop out to me though as at best the effects will take maybe an hour to lessen max. Now having a really bad time on something like 2c-P or DOC is far more serious. I agree to some extent that certain people are at higher risk for negative experiences but I find it silly and comical when people think there are some people who can never have one. For instantance, I would ask those people if they were truly ballsy enough to think they at least wouldn't be pretty damn frightened for a bit of time if something crazy truly crazy and inevitable for them to stop or get away from ike say being accidentally caught up in even a small scale riot. I know I know, a bit far fecthed but say you just happened to be wandering in certain parts of LA on a high dose of whatever psych when the riots broke out or you were out for a late night stroll after some big sporting event and the inebriated losing team's fans took to the streets looking for trouble. Another example could be a fairly severe natural diaster or being robbed. These may be a little diffierent from standard bad trips and some even say it wouldn't count because it technically is an outside force/event pushing people but to me since its setting it still would count. Really though to me though its more about pointing out that we simply can't control everything though we often try our best think just that. I find it better to always maintain healthly levels of doubt, paranoia, suspiscon, as well as respect though as its treated and lead me well thus far!

We can all pretend to be Superman but even he was vunerable to something. I also notice some of the people making these claims haven't even taken things to certain levels sometimes which is perfectly fine as it's usually a personal choice but IMO you can't talk big if you haven't ventured very far. People can always think big up until the times their truly challenged, that is where the divide usually starts as far as i've seen......

Lastly as everyone has poingantly pointed out, a person who has difficultly disputing the fact from the fiction probably shouldn't be tripping, let alone someone with schizophenia who is already predisposed to bouts of wrestling with the bounds of reality.

 

[Ismene]

Well yeah - I suppose if I was tripping hard and a 260lb linebacker broke into my house and proceeded to anally rape me wearing a heavily ribbed condom I could have a bad trip. Especially if he insisted I squeal like a pig for his pleasure.

I dunno if it's dosage, I've taken big enough doses of LSD and mushrooms to stun a charging rhino.

 

[Asante]

Its not about good trips or bad trips. Any intense experience, good or bad, can cause an upsurge of psychosis in someone with schizophrenia.

 

[bees_knees]

Thanks for the really great responses!

It is true, schizophrenia is no jolly mindfuck, it has NO REDEEMING BENEFITS, it is literally painful, you are so anxious and paranoid, and you don't want to do anything, you can't do anything, it's a bit like starving to death in the cold and you don't even care...

Terence McKenna had some far, far out ideas but he also had some moderate ideas. And if by being short of a picnic you mean he was dumb, he was actually highly intelligent, if crazy, then you might be sorta right. His moderate ideas are basically a much more sensible way to think about yourself and the world. He explains how we created our current worldview, how flimsy it is, and how you should go on to discover your own understanding, not as part of a culture, but only as yourself, with your friends, your highs lows etc. not the collective culture. His basic statement was that nobody understands what is happening and we should all attempt to do so on our own.

 

[Asante]

Schizophrenia is also a horribly lonely disease. In the height of psychosis theres no one you can effectively relate your woes, trials and tribulations to and you can be in a room full of people and they'd be like aliens to you.You try to reach out and people react shocked, afraid, alarmed at how you carry yourself and even when you are lucid you can not let people "get it" what its like because what you experience is out of thev realm of normal human experience.

Antipsychotic drugs and leading a calm, uneventful life seem to have the best track record of keeping them in touch with the rest of society.

If at all, schizophrenics should only take psychedelic drugs under the care of a treatment staff which can deal with the consequences, and one of the consequences can be a particularly intense trip, either good or bad, paving the way to a whopper of a psychotic episode, of a magnitude that might not have happened ever while sober.

 

[Psychonautical]

Well it depends i've notices there are polarity shifts within highs.
So you are Schizophrenic. There are polarity shifts inside of you.
Now when a ++++ experience happens to people who generally suffer from some kind of Ailment, be it Addiction, Pain,
I've noticed alot of them seem cured. Or at least for a short while, the resurgence of negative feelings doesn't flow through in such abundance.
as it once did.

IF you are "schizo" yet you have maintained withinside of yourself that you are in control of variable aspects of your illness.
If you take LSD. You Promise us, you will not take it for "fun" but you will take it to give yourself a thorough examination.
Meditate on who you are and who you want to be and how you can take those divergent forces and find a way to make them meet.

Really it is Russian Roulette, it's your head, it's your life. Dodge a Bullet or don't.
But know there are things that you can do to help correct your emotional states which are alot like meditation.
If you choose to listen to them while under the influence.

 

[pmoseman]

So in my experience, cannabis can bring latent schizophrenia to the forefront. So can heavy amphetamine/MDMA use. But although already schizophrenic at the time and not really having any insight into it, I've never had any bad mushroom experiences. They've all been sheerly amazing. So I read on MAPS that someone had used LSD to treat childhood schizophrenia with positive results, also Stan Grof used LSD on schizophrenic patients before it was outlawed.

I'm not seeking to treat my schizophrenia as it has gone into remission and continues to improve. I am just wondering what you know about mixing schizophrenia with psychedelics. It seems intuitively that you shouldn't, but I wonder if that's true? Is it a bit of an ignorant position, since LSD as a model psychosis has lost favour since the experiences are distinct? I understand cannabis and amphetamines because they work heavily on dopamine and schizophrenia is about having too high levels of dopamine, and I'll never go near these again, but mushroom season is going to come around again and I know never-fail spots nearby, and mushrooms don't really work on dopamine, and I feel really drawn to them as an experience... I sort of 'fear' I'm going to have some more.

So can you give me some information on this? What's your experience if you're schizophrenic? I remember reading in a bluelight post that some guy was schizophrenic and had tripped hundreds of times. I'm just wondering if there's a different mechanism of action to the mushroom in particular here that's not going to exacerbate schizophrenia.

well you have study back in the 60's and when they analyzed the people with LSD that suffered psychosis there was something like 29 out of 53 had the diagnosis after the fact of being predisposed to schizophrenia.
But doesn't really say much these werea group of patients with mental issues to begin with. I don't think it proves it psychosis are simply misdiagnosed schizophrenics. I think it really shows that even if you're not that you can suffer from the psychosis.
Unless someone has evidence that people with schizophrenia are harmed by LSD in a study of random sampling and able to actually diagnose schizophrenia, which is in itself incredibly difficult, I might be proven wrong. But I am not to worried since no such evidence exists. Like Atara said, we simply do not know.
Certain claims about LSD being harmless or harmful to people with or without schizophrenia is based on passing the blame and always based on a lot of assumption. It is just an idea people latched onto.

 

[sean107]

I have psychosis and LSD, phenethylamines, and NBOMe made it worse short term. LSD/general phenethylamines less so than NBOMe. However tryptamines never have had any negative impact on me, only neutral or positive.

 

[DubNaut]

should be but not sure if it is possibly somewhat subjective based

 

[lovepsychadelics]

I don't think Terence McKenna is a very good example of anything. Dude was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

With that said, there's a great deal of disagreement as to what a bad trip even is: all we know is people don't like having them. What really matters is how people react to their trips, and it is in this case that some people show significantly more susceptibility to, shall we say, psychedelic suggestion, than are others. Schizophrenics already have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy in many cases , and it is this latter skill which can be so critical in being able to integrate intense psychedelic experienced into your life in a healthy fashion.

Of course, McKenna couldn't distinguish fact from fiction if they were labeled as such, so maybe he fits the pattern.

A few sandwiches??? The guy didn't even have a fucking hamper (picnic basket) or blanket let alone actually anything to put in either. I LOATH McKenna and his pseudo intellectual bullshit he spouted about his psychedelic "experiences". Sad thing is way to many buy right into his delusional rantings which in turn causes me to question their own subjective state of mental health and if they should even be using these drugs.

Thing is I'm not the psychedelic drug police here. Each to their own and own state of mind just be careful with dose, setting etc and if you have a diagnosed mental health condition I would be VERY FUCKING CAREFUL taking any drug let alone psychedelics.

BTW there were a heap of published studies using LSD on inpatients in psychiatric facilities during the 50's and 60's including as a treatment for schizophrenia as the only other contemporary treatment included phenobarbitol and the recently discovered anti-psychotic action of the relatively new drug group derived from anti-histamine's.

My suggestion is to actually read published research journal article's rather than turn to wiki for data. If you can't find the data best not to make your own assumptions pmoseman. Doing research for university level thesis publication is a good way to develop those research skills. Not that ethics were a key part of such studies during the 50's and 60's, I mean lobotomy was considered an acceptable treatment so some must be taken with a grain of salt but it is considered that dopaminergic stimulating substances are a bad idea for people with already pre-existing excessive dopamine present in their brains such those experienced by schizophrenics.

 

[pmoseman]

You tell me not to assume, then you turn right around and assume the same old story purportedly supported by the Cohen study I was referring to.
The faith everyone has is that LSD affects only those predisposed to schizophrenia. Rubbish.
You can not extend the study to represent the country. It was a population of mental patients. Other studies were of volunteers. Because the research of this one study was with psych patients, they continued to have mental health evaluations. The other biased sample groups' mental health was not studied, and psychotics tend not to self-report.
You folks who have faith in this assumption then use anecdotal evidence and the false belief you can spot a schizoid problem before and after it happens to reinforce your convictions.
No. What the study found was that out of that group of psych patients who developed a psychosis after experiencing LSD, 45% of them did not have a predisposition to schizophrenia.