I'm sorry for being a no-post user bumping an ancient thread, but this is so interessting. Anything came from it more recently?
I did MDMA a few times many years ago, and quickly lost the magic. This was a real shock to me, and very depressing as I really loved MDMA and thought I did everything to do it safely; few times a year, reasonable dose, no redosing, antioxidants, no other drugs, etc. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I had "used up my times" of MDMA, but I'm still curious about how MDMA works and what causes the loss of magic.
The whole serotonin thing never seemed all that believable to me. The magic simply can't be caused by serotonin release, since other serotonin releasers don't cause MDMA magic, but tend to cause similar dizziness and other side effects that MDMA does. I know about the serotonin->oxytocin cascade theory, and it is very interessting, but still, I can't shake the thought that some completely different neurochemical process, possible still unknown, must be involved. Learning about the trace amine signalling also opens up the possibility, at least to my pretty ignorant mind, that chemical interference in other signalling systems have a much bigger impact on your feelings than the regular suspects dopamine and serotonin. Perhaps the only reason we are looking at those transporters is that they were easier to identify because they use more of the neurotransmitter? Or perhaps they are just the vessel for the simple emotional systems of lower organisms (no offense, squids!) that we have inherited, but their use today is only a biological backdrop or a scaffold on which our thinking and emotional brain is built with completely different, more specialized and delicate neurotransmitters that we have yet to discover? Their receptors would have evolved from the usual suspects, such as the serotonin and dopamine receptors, and the evolutionary pressure would have been to make them ignore serotonin and dopamine, but perhaps they would still be completely unprotected against "analogs" like MDMA?
That the immune system would cause loss of magic, now this could certainly explain a lot of the observed phenomena. Some metabolite or perhaps a protein modified by MDMA during metabolism would be the cause of the magic, and there would be antibodies formed against it with repeated use. Perhaps this modified protein or metabolite is involved in the actual signalling cascade for your regular, household, love! Perhaps the immune system itself is a part of the biological mechanism behind love; killing off neural connections to imprint a feeling of love towards certain identified objects (like friends).
Perhaps part of our immune system isn't involved in killing off germs at all, but has been adapted to be used as an ad-hoc homeostasis device. It would be running around watching for those modified proteins, allowing us to eat certain fruits containing poisonous alkaloids instead of just leaving the task completely to the cytochromes and other enzymes.
I'm no biologist or chemist, so there's a high chance I'm just rambling nonsense, and I'm aware of this risk. Still, this is so interessting I couldn't keep quiet.
I did MDMA a few times many years ago, and quickly lost the magic. This was a real shock to me, and very depressing as I really loved MDMA and thought I did everything to do it safely; few times a year, reasonable dose, no redosing, antioxidants, no other drugs, etc. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I had "used up my times" of MDMA, but I'm still curious about how MDMA works and what causes the loss of magic.
The whole serotonin thing never seemed all that believable to me. The magic simply can't be caused by serotonin release, since other serotonin releasers don't cause MDMA magic, but tend to cause similar dizziness and other side effects that MDMA does. I know about the serotonin->oxytocin cascade theory, and it is very interessting, but still, I can't shake the thought that some completely different neurochemical process, possible still unknown, must be involved. Learning about the trace amine signalling also opens up the possibility, at least to my pretty ignorant mind, that chemical interference in other signalling systems have a much bigger impact on your feelings than the regular suspects dopamine and serotonin. Perhaps the only reason we are looking at those transporters is that they were easier to identify because they use more of the neurotransmitter? Or perhaps they are just the vessel for the simple emotional systems of lower organisms (no offense, squids!) that we have inherited, but their use today is only a biological backdrop or a scaffold on which our thinking and emotional brain is built with completely different, more specialized and delicate neurotransmitters that we have yet to discover? Their receptors would have evolved from the usual suspects, such as the serotonin and dopamine receptors, and the evolutionary pressure would have been to make them ignore serotonin and dopamine, but perhaps they would still be completely unprotected against "analogs" like MDMA?
That the immune system would cause loss of magic, now this could certainly explain a lot of the observed phenomena. Some metabolite or perhaps a protein modified by MDMA during metabolism would be the cause of the magic, and there would be antibodies formed against it with repeated use. Perhaps this modified protein or metabolite is involved in the actual signalling cascade for your regular, household, love! Perhaps the immune system itself is a part of the biological mechanism behind love; killing off neural connections to imprint a feeling of love towards certain identified objects (like friends).
Perhaps part of our immune system isn't involved in killing off germs at all, but has been adapted to be used as an ad-hoc homeostasis device. It would be running around watching for those modified proteins, allowing us to eat certain fruits containing poisonous alkaloids instead of just leaving the task completely to the cytochromes and other enzymes.
I'm no biologist or chemist, so there's a high chance I'm just rambling nonsense, and I'm aware of this risk. Still, this is so interessting I couldn't keep quiet.
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Abstinence has little effect on mdma "tolerance". It will get you back the speedy effects and even the mongyness, but not the magic. There has been some anecdotal reports of St Johns wort extracts and piracetam being used to get the magic back, but it's not clear if it really works. It is also hard to see how it would work pharmacologically.