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Research No major differences found in the hallucinogenic effects of LSD and magic mushrooms

acidliam

acidliam

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Scientists wishing to further develop research into psychedelic-assisted therapy compared the hallucinogenic effects of LSD to the active component in magic mushrooms, psilocybin on healthy participants. In a study published this month, they found no major differences in the induced altered states of consciousness of the participants.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised, crossover study was designed and conducted using 28 participants, 14 male and 14 female. The participants took part in 5 sessions of 25 hours where they received either placebo, psilocybin, or LSD. Each session was separated by at least 10 days.

Various measures were recorded, including; heart rate, blood pressure, pupil size, body temperature. Blood tests were taken to measure different levels, and participants were asked to self-report feelings, such as; experience of unity, spiritual experience, blissful state, insightfulness, disembodiment and others such as; impaired control and cognition, and anxiety.

The researchers noted that “The doses of 100 and 200 µg LSD and 30 mg psilocybin produced comparable subjective effects. The 15 mg psilocybin dose produced clearly weaker subjective effects compared with both doses of LSD and 30 mg psilocybin. The 200 µg dose of LSD induced higher ratings of ego-dissolution, impairments in control and cognition, and anxiety than the 100 µg dose. The 200 µg dose of LSD increased only ratings of ineffability significantly more than 30 mg psilocybin. LSD at both doses had clearly longer effect durations than psilocybin. Psilocybin increased blood pressure more than LSD, whereas LSD increased heart rate more than psilocybin.”

Full article: https://www.leafie.co.uk/news/no-ma...cinogenic-effects-of-lsd-and-magic-mushrooms/
 
The title seems to be the opposite of what they actually found, or at the very least, greatly overstating their results. My title would've been "if you fiddle with the doses enough, LSD and psilocybin have some similar effects"


They absolutely have different visual effects, imho. Acid is more geometric, electric, artificial looking, whereas psilocybin is warping/waving, color shifts, and more organic looking
 
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the actual study for those curious:

Direct comparison of the acute effects of lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects

perhaps clinically the difference is pretty insignificant. i think either one used in the current model of drug assisted psychotherapy would be good.

but they conclude:

We found no evidence of qualitative differences in altered states of consciousness that were induced by either LSD or psilocybin, except that the duration of action was shorter for psilocybin.
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that just feels lazy to me. imo that is just evidence that the methods they used were inadeqaute to elucidate the qualitative differences.
 
Thanks for moving this thread, I didn’t catch it wasn’t already in DPMC 🤦‍♂️

Cream Gravy? said:
Yep. Clearly the scientists who conducted the study have never taken either substance.
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Yup. If clinicians and researchers would simply listen to the lived experience of drug users, we’d be light years ahead
 
It parses to me most if not of the differences to be found in a taste test are 'minor' by the metric this study is using... I can't say I entirely agree with it, but with enough rounding it checks out a lot more than trying to say ketamine and LSD inspire closely related states.

Bare in mind most polydrug users who can tell you the difference are going to be pretty seasoned, if you made a LSD tablet big enough to hold say.... 25MG 4-HO-DMT and dosed it with like 200ug LSD I doubt many newbies would be able to explain which was which outside of duration.
 
The study I really want to see, is where they do this with experienced psychedelic users and see if they can tell which one they've been given (after a couple hours, say, before the duration is evident). Maybe they're harder to tell apart than people think without the context! Hardcore addicts can't tell the difference between heroin and hydromorphone, for example.
 
That’s a good point. I believe the same was found for methamphetamine and amphetamine

Regardless, I think this study’s conclusion was still lazy
 
There was a study where they found "no major differences" between psilocybin and DXM – something anyone on Bluelight would vehemently deny... except in a sense so broad it's meaningless.

You can't really convey the subjectivity of experience – let alone an experience as extreme as a psychedelic trip – by bubbling in a number from 0-5 for "insight" or "connectedness."
 
arrall said:
Can you link that? Very interested in reading.
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This article uses similar logic as the lsd/psilocybin article this thread is about. So not particularly convincing but interesting I guess

This study is much more in depth imo and
concludes,

“The current results confirm and extend the findings of Hart et al. (2002) by showing that methamphetamine functioned as a discriminative stimulus and d-amphetamine and methylphenidate substituted for methamphetamine. The present results are also concordant with the findings from the animal studies demonstrating that d-amphetamine and methylphenidate substituted for methamphetamine (Czoty et al., 2004a,b; Desai et al., 2007). Thus, in agreement with the previous findings in humans and animals, results from the current study indicate that methamphetamine functions as a discriminative stimulus, and the behavioral effects of methamphetamine are similar to those of the other commonly abused stimulants.”

I’d definitely read the second one (especially the methods section) if you’re interested
 
S.J.B. said:
That one's particularly tricky because they give placebo vs. methamphetamine for a while and switch to other stimulant vs. methamphetamine, so I'm not surprised people don't catch it. Anecdotally, I would give myself a better chance of differentiating methylphenidate from methamphetamine than LSD from psilocybin.
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that is true, however, it’s stated that during the sampling phase “Subjects also were told that they should pay close attention to the effects of drug A because in future sessions, they would no longer be told whether they had received drug A.” so in principle, subjects should know that the researchers are trying to trick them, so to speak.

also it’s noted that “Additional acquisition sessions were interspersed among the test days to ensure subjects continued to accurately discriminate 10 mg of methamphetamine. Acquisition sessions comprised approximately 42% of sessions during the test phase.” so it’s not like it was a sudden switch from meth vs placebo to meth vs other stimulant

i think if subjects has been told that the tests for that day were a meth vs other stimulant task then they may be more likely to say that they had been given the other stimulant. whereas by having mixed meth vs placebo tests and meth vs other stim tests the subjects know that they really need to be familiar with the meth (or what they knew it as, drug A) and so their response is less biased to choosing the other stim option
 
The visuals are fine from either, but it's the overwhelming euphoric sense of connection that keeps me coming back
 
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LSD is highly analytic drug while shrooms are highly emotional
Ofc it’s not always like that, nor for everyone but that difference (along with visual difference as RedRum OG described it) are quite consistent for me and in fact LSD and shrooms are as different as tryptamines can be for me. Hell I would even say 2c-p, DOx, BDF and many others are more similar to LSD than shrooms.
 
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