Op-Ed Psychedelics for Depression: Can They Work Without Hallucinations?

thegreenhand

thegreenhand

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Psychedelics for Depression: Can They Work Without Hallucinations?​

Dana G. Smith
New York Times
15 Jul 2022

Excerpt:
Nick Fernandez was in hell — one filled with fire and skulls and the long-legged elephants from a Salvador Dalí painting. A spirit had guided him there after his funeral; other stops on their journey included Grand Central Terminal, the top of the Empire State Building and the sewers flowing beneath New York City. Their final destination was a cave where Mr. Fernandez encountered his own body, hung up on a clothes hanger. By examining his body in this way, he was able to come to peace with all that it had been through and accept it as his own.
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Whether hallucinations like the ones Mr. Fernandez experienced are key to psychedelics’ effectiveness is now a question of great debate among researchers. The answer could determine whether millions of people receive much-needed treatment, and it could provide new insight into how mental health disorders are treated going forward.
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Absolutely, there are lots of psychedelics without extravagant visual distortion that can still have a similarly-profound introspective effect. 2C-I being the best example I can think of.
 
i wonder if visual hallucinations might actually be an obstacle for some patients.. I'm particularly thinking of trauma patients 'reliving' things, that probably is not optimal for their condition
 
thegreenhand said:
i wonder if visual hallucinations might actually be an obstacle for some patients.. I'm particularly thinking of trauma patients 'reliving' things, that probably is not optimal for their condition
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They may or may not.

I have PTSD and I dosed some 4-HO-MIPT to help me with some bad anxiety and depression that I've been dealing with. During my trip I did "relive" some of my trauma, and it was very clear, very lucid what I saw. It honestly wasn't much worse than when I'm sober. It's just instead of avoiding the thought I let myself sit in it and address it. It was hard, but I think it's unavoidable with psychedelics with people who have trauma.

I don't know, maybe something more visual like DMT would cause more intense visuals related to the trauma, but I'm not sure
 
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