[HN Gopher] Psychedelics researcher approached his death with ca...
___________________________________________________________________
Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and
curiosity
Author : ianai
Score : 129 points
Date : 2023-11-05 12:26 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| Arubis wrote:
| For those so inclined, Tara Brach had a lovely interview with
| Roland early this year: https://overcast.fm/+SWwgtYFDM
|
| From the podcast summary:
|
| Meditation, Psychedelics, Mortality: A conversation with Tara and
| Roland Griffiths - Roland is a long-term meditator, a
| psychopharmacologist and professor at Johns Hopkins, and a leader
| in researching the clinical effects of psychedelics, including
| their impact on those struggling with cancer, depression or
| addiction. At the end of 2021, he discovered he had incurable
| stage 4 Colon Cancer. This conversation explores the relationship
| between meditation and psychedelics, and how they both can serve
| profound spiritual awakening and deep inner freedom in the face
| of mortality.
|
| Information about the endowment fund: The Roland R. Griffiths,
| Ph.D. Professorship Fund in Psychedelic Research on Secular
| Spirituality and Well-Being.
| jseliger wrote:
| I'm not a psychedelic researcher, but I have taken
| psychedelics, and I recently wrote "Strange trip: Psychedelics
| and confronting the fear of death:"
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/25/strange-trip-
| psychedelics..., which covers similar themes.
| nekitamo wrote:
| Your blog is deeply moving, thank you for posting the link.
| When my time comes, I hope I accept it with the equanimity
| and grace you display.
| jseliger wrote:
| Thank you and you're welcome, too!
| ggpsv wrote:
| A beautiful read, thank you for sharing. May you and your
| partner be well.
| jseliger wrote:
| Thank you and you're welcome, too!
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| There's also this episode with Sam Harris that is worth
| listening to: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/waking-up-
| conversations/p...
| bobosha wrote:
| I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but
| legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing
| clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD,
| Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably
| the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if
| not ever.
|
| Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change
| your mind" (Netflix documentary).
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g
| sedivy94 wrote:
| I'm not going to be that guy, because I don't read nearly
| enough to begin with, but I read the book and... it was
| amazing. I have a deep appreciation for the psychedelic
| experience and reading his trip reports brought me, a 30 year
| old man, to tears.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation as
| in e.g. vipassana does not? They seem like a pointless
| shortcut, and potentially a problematic one. If the
| hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care about,
| that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences such as
| dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep. What
| "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with chemicals,
| that we couldn't otherwise?
| freedomben wrote:
| This is very similar to "what do antidepressant medications
| achieve that regular diet and exercise do not? "
|
| Assuming equal efficacy is possible in the first place, and
| assuming every human is even capable of reaching those
| levels, there are people who can't spend the sometimes years
| it takes to practice meditation to a point where they can
| achieve psychidelic efficacy.
|
| Why not have both available and you can do you?
| cyberpip wrote:
| The argument here is that psychedelics are more than
| "chemicals" and comparing them to drifting in and out of
| sleep is not a real comparison. Can't argue against them
| sometimes being problematic though, of course, but the
| argument here isn't acknowledging the real psychedelic
| experience. If curious, check out some reports on
| https://www.youtube.com/@Vivec
| zozbot234 wrote:
| What I compared to drifting in and out of sleep was merely
| one effect of psychedelics that people tend to be curious
| about, namely hallucination. Moreover one can very much
| approach these dreamlike states with a meditation-like,
| non-judgmental, non self-centered mental posture, and this
| is going to make their effects even clearer.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Yes. As captured by the Big Lez Show:
|
| > Donny: Panaeolus cyanescens, psychadellic.
|
| > Lez: What do they do to ya?
|
| > Sassy: Take you on a journey of self-discovery, you find
| out who you really are, this and that.
|
| > Donny: Either that or you trip out for four or six hours.
| But in our current situation this will be really good for us,
| gunna heighten our senses so we'll be way more in tune with
| our surroundings.
|
| > Lez: These heighten senses?
|
| > Donny: They heighten senses you didn't even know you had.
|
| > Lez: Have we got more than five?
|
| > Donny: So many.
|
| > Lez: How do I turn them on?
|
| > Sassy: Meditate.
|
| > Donny: Yeah meditation's probably the best way. Or, trip
| out on some psychedelic mushrooms.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPeSVlk6E70
| omginternets wrote:
| I think the transcendent experience has a lot to do with it.
| lukasb wrote:
| I love meditation and practice daily, but not everyone can do
| 1 hour a day (Goenka recommends two) and one ten day retreat
| a year.
|
| If one or two guided trips can transform someone's
| relationship to death, that's hugely valuable.
| oooyay wrote:
| > What do psychedelics achieve here that ordinary meditation
| as in e.g. vipassana does not?
|
| I actually don't think it's worth comparing the two. They
| achieve a similar end goal depending on your intentionality
| but I don't think it's fruitful to say one is better than the
| other.
|
| > They seem like a pointless shortcut, and potentially a
| problematic one.
|
| Psychedelics certainly have a higher ability to be abused.
| People need to be educated on looking at their family mental
| health history, they need an informed trip sitter, and they
| need to be well informed on what the experience will entail.
|
| On the other hand, how many guru cults that incorporate
| meditation as a form of psychological warfare and isolation
| have we witnessed in our lifetimes? The people who are
| casually allowed to walk around and profess themselves as
| prophets or gurus is highly adjacent to the consequences of
| ill-informed ego death and return in the psychedelic space.
|
| > If the hallucinatory dynamic is specifically what you care
| about, that's also typical of perfectly ordinary experiences
| such as dreaming, or even just drifting in and out of sleep
|
| Psilocybin, LSD, and DMT are _nothing_ like dreaming. They
| 're very vivid experiences. They can rip you out of your
| rooting in this reality which is why, imo, they're not good
| to do unless you have an informed trip sitter who can ensure
| your mental, emotional, and physical safety. That's what also
| makes them powerful teachers in the way of perspective; imo,
| it's not that you're "unlocking secrets to the universe"
| during a trip, moreso you've been granted a perspective
| outside of your sense of self that is difficult to achieve
| otherwise. Depending on the dose it could also be total
| dissolution of the ego. These things wear off, of course, but
| someone who can help you do a "soft landing" in the case
| where you run into some trauma makes a huge difference. The
| things you process _afterward_ are where "the work" is done.
|
| > What "treasure" are we gaining by dosing the brain with
| chemicals, that we couldn't otherwise?
|
| You could meditate until your ego dies and likely achieve
| many of the same machinations from what I've read from
| peoples testimonies. Again, the work isn't done _during_
| meditation, it 's how you decompose your experience and
| incorporate it into your life later. Psychedelics are the
| same, just a different mechanism that you cannot choose to
| say "I'm done" halfway through.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Psychdelics can and do kill meaningful amount of people, almost
| exclusively due to injuries while under their affects.
|
| 147 psychedelic deaths over three years -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523208/
|
| I'll have to find a youtube video but there's a good one with
| one of the psychdelic guru's describing a trip where had mis-
| dosed (he didn't realize the mushrooms he was consuming were
| significantly stronger than anticipated) and he ended up stuck
| in a "loop" of not being able to start his car.. for three or
| four hours. His exprience was distressing but not much of an
| injury, but he then delves into a story about how a similar
| loop resulted in one of his friends dying from repeatedly
| falling into cement.
| grogenaut wrote:
| How did the guy end up with 2 different neophyte people they
| were instructing in dangerous situations and sharing that.
| Let's not mince word, if the first had started the carit
| would be a dangerous situation. In college with alcohol wed
| stick a sober watcher over the pre-frosh who decided to drink
| the first time away from home.
|
| Having just one go slightly sideways would make me really
| cautious. I was because freshman year I found some random
| pre-frosh who had hidden in a closet cause they thought
| they'd be in trouble (they were not, wet campus) who needed
| help.
| freedomben wrote:
| If 147 in 3 years is "a meaningful amount of people" then
| we're gonna need to ban a lot of other stuff to stay
| consistent.
| debo_ wrote:
| Like lakes, for example.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Stairs
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Bathtubs.
| huytersd wrote:
| Running
| quaddo wrote:
| Earthquakes.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Why was he trying to start his car? I'm glad he couldn't
| figure it out otherwise he could have killed someone. This is
| a personal responsibility thing.
| rpearl wrote:
| The paper you linked does not say what you claim it says.
|
| Instead, it appears to investigate psychoactive drug deaths
| not to do with overdose.
|
| There appear to be no "traditional" psychedelics
| (serotonergic hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin, etc)
| covered here _at all_ except perhaps one death categorized as
| a "hallucinogen", which is definitely a lot less than 100% of
| the 147 deaths investigated.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| You misquoted the title, which is actually, "Fatal injuries
| while under the influence of psychoactive drugs". There was
| no psychedelic fatalities other than 1 MDMA & alcohol one.
| Those were all booze, and other drugs. I'm not saying there
| are none, it's just the death rate during psychedelic trips
| is a actually lower than for sober people. On average those
| drive less and are often in group settings, so it's more
| those substances don't alter the death rate and the safety is
| provided by the context of not driving as much as typical,
| and not working with machinery.
| almatabata wrote:
| When you say legalize broadly i guess you mean allow doctors to
| prescribe it to their patients with proper protocols and not
| just allow anyone to buy it over the counter?
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| When I talk about legalising drugs, I mean being able to buy
| them with the same level of control as beer or cigarettes.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| Because beer and cigarettes are both mind-altering drugs
| yet get a pass because of mostly-economic reasons.
| freedomben wrote:
| Not economic, historical. It's purely because both were
| things before the puritan movement (which still greatly
| impacts society today) and people are already familiar
| with them. If alcohol were discovered today, there's no
| way in hell it would be legal
| almatabata wrote:
| Do cigarettes have such a big mind-altering effect?
| almatabata wrote:
| thanks for clarifying.
| huytersd wrote:
| I understand that people are very different because if I took
| mushrooms when I was terminally ill, I would have a trip so bad
| it would break my mind.
| ngai_aku wrote:
| Did a previous trip lead you to this belief are you just
| speculating on what your experience would be like?
| huytersd wrote:
| I've had one bad trip (not terrible) when I was expecting
| some bad news. I'm basing it off of that experience. I've
| had a dozen other good trips but I was always careful to
| make sure I was in a good headspace before doing it.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| How is this different from escaping problems through drug use?
| wombat-man wrote:
| Psychedelics are so different from alcohol and narcotics, idk
| how to explain. Instead of being distracted or numbed from your
| problems, you may concentrate on them deeply and from new
| angles.
|
| But delusions can occur too. Ymmv.
| freedomben wrote:
| Is it fair to infer that you have a value judgment on escaping
| problems through drug use, and think it's wrong or bad?
|
| If so, why?
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.
| freedomben wrote:
| Why do you think the former precludes the latter?
|
| This seems to be like if someone comes to a doctor with an
| arrow stuck through him, someone saying "don't give him any
| pain killers, that's bad. Just take the arrow out so the
| problem is solved."
|
| You should obviously remove the arrow to correct the root
| cause, but you don't need to deny the patient pain killers
| in order to do so. Judging him morally or legally for
| wanting them doesn't make sense to me, short of claiming
| that an unprovable all powerful being who talks to man only
| through extremely unreliable and non reproducable channels
| has revealed to us that it's actually a sin.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| For me it depends on context; Pain exists for a purpose
| (i.e don't put wait on a broken leg otherwise you could
| extend healing time or make things worse) but if
| technology allows us to mitigate the potential problems
| (i.e fixing the bone and apply a cast will allow you to
| walk but not add strain) getting ride of pain in the
| meantime is probably a net good.
|
| If you have chronic pain of some sort and you use
| substances to mask that pain the root problem hasn't been
| addressed and still exists, you just won't be aware of
| it. If loosing awareness (which at its simplest is what
| painkillers do) of the ongoing problem is okey with you
| by all means take a substance to mask it, just don't be
| surprised when the original problem grows worse latter.
|
| Im okey with people masking or not masking. It should be
| a personal choice free of judgement.
|
| There are two guys and both are extremely depressed. One
| guy decides to seek out a therapist and has a meeting set
| for two weeks from now, the other guy decides to take
| MDMA/LSD/shrooms (or whatever) every day. He feels
| amazing and is living his best life every day. The first
| guy is super depressed day to day but maybe the therapy
| will help...
|
| The next week they are on a plane together that crashes.
| Who made the better decision?
|
| Alternatively they don't die and instead live decades
| more. The first guy got to the root of his issues and
| lived a very happy life while the second eventually
| burned out and fell into even deeper depression for his
| remaining years. Who made the better decision?
|
| It is not fair for us to judge others on how they would
| like to treat their own bodies and minds. We don't know
| the totality of their path through life.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| Your point is taken, but it's not quite apples-to-apples.
|
| Therapy can be a deep healing process or a superficial
| fix, just as psychedelics like shrooms, LSD, or MDMA can
| be used daily by some (suggesting a shamanic lifestyle,
| in my opinion) or lead to profound insights in a single
| ayahuasca trip for others.
|
| It's true we shouldn't judge what works for someone
| without knowing them well, and even then, we can only
| offer suggestions. But when comparing, we should ensure
| we're not misrepresenting the situation, whether
| intentionally or not.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| How do you solve stage 4 terminal cancer?
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| My parent was diagnosed with stage 4. We tried to help
| and ultimately we all accepted death was near.
| rpearl wrote:
| The problem to be solved in this case is unnecessary
| distress and pain about one's inevitable death.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| And how do you solve that
| dieselgate wrote:
| One common solution is the hospice system. There's no
| silver bullet for any of this and it's a bit irksome see
| so many comments treating this like a "5 whys" exercise
| omginternets wrote:
| The problem here is acceptance of one's mortality. What
| solution do you propose?
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Accept it fully.
| omginternets wrote:
| Quite. How do you propose to do that?
|
| And more importantly, how do you propose people who
| struggle to do this reach that acceptance?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| The article talks about that and it seems the patient did
| accept the mortality fully:
|
| > It wasn't that he was filled with spiritual language
| like, "God's gonna save me." No, it was an acceptance for
| his condition and a reassurance to the people he loved
| most, that everything was OK, everything was as it should
| be, and they felt uplifted by that.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| It seems you're nearing the message. How does one accept
| that fully? What do we do in the face of struggles with
| what may be the greatest struggle a human being ever
| faces? Could there be some technique that could help?
| What would that technique look like? Could it include the
| ingestion of a substance? If ingesting said substance
| along with guided meditation was vastly superior to all
| other techniques of death acceptance, would that be
| avoiding the problem with drugs?
|
| I think what you're not understanding is that taking the
| drug _is_ the death acceptance technique. It _is the
| thing_ that allows these people to quickly transition
| into peace. Do you have a better way? Could you please
| share that so all of our dying family members could
| finally have the simple solution you seem to be aware of?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The drug is just exposing these subjects to the
| experience of living fully in the present moment. This is
| not something that can be done as "one weird trick", it
| requires true spiritual maturation-- and yet, people who
| haven't learned how to do this are literally dying every
| single day, whether they realize this or not. Whatever
| time is past for them, is in Death's hands already. They
| can choose to dwell on this, or just not bother and live
| life to the fullest as best they can.
| omginternets wrote:
| We are lucky enough to have two tools at our disposal:
|
| 1. Cultivating the spirit. This is slow and has a high
| abandonment rate, but it is second-to-none in terms of
| living a fulfilling life. It is worth pursuing, but is
| unfortunately ill-suited for rescuing people who are in
| the midst of a mental-health emergency. It should be
| thought of as "prevention".
|
| 2. Cultivating psychoactive substances. This is riskier
| than the first option, but it has two main advantages:
| (1) with some precautions, it is immensely helpful in
| connecting people with their spiritual lives and (2) in
| an emergency, it is reliably effective. This is on par
| with the discovery of antibiotics, in terms of medical
| significance. It should be thought of as "intervention".
|
| Why anyone would willingly renounce the use of either? On
| what principle? This is obscurantism.
| barbs wrote:
| That's ideal, but some people don't have the resources to
| do that.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Because it can be about _facing_ the problem, with assistance
| of an altered state opened by the psychedelic. They are tools
| in the right context.
|
| (Disclaimer, working at ayahuasca retreat centers for the last
| 3 years so maybe biased as to what that context actually is :))
| martopix wrote:
| Because the kind of drug use you're thinking of means
| _addiction_ to a substance (one that typically numbs you or
| makes you feel unnaturally happy). Here he 's discussing about
| people improving their condition after a single dose.
| specproc wrote:
| IMHO, it's perfectly fine, positive even to escape one's
| problems with drug use. You just can't do it every day.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| If one could do you think that would be a problem?
| specproc wrote:
| I guess depends on the drug and the problem.
|
| Daily use of lots of substances, e.g. alcohol, isn't
| necessarily a bad thing in itself (though it really can
| be), but if it's to escape a problem then there's a serious
| risk there. As the above suggested, the problem also
| remains unresolved.
|
| So yeah, I don't think a person self-medicating on a daily
| basis is always problematic, but it's never worked out well
| for me, and it's not something I'd advise.
|
| My original point was really that getting out of one's head
| once in a while can give a fresh perspective on a problem.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Depends on the drug.
|
| Caffeine? Probably the most used and least worst, could
| still cause sleep disruptions.
|
| Weed? Could be a problem. It's very easy to get mentally
| addicted to it and turn you into a bowl of mush, but if
| you're using it in medical doses I imagine it's less so.
|
| Microdosing LSD? Depends from person to person. I think
| using it too often isn't good for the heart.
|
| Alcohol? Absolutely a problem, even if the worst side
| effects take years to manifest.
| dbtc wrote:
| Confronting problems with medicinal assistance.
|
| Intention makes a difference.
| 0max wrote:
| Most folks associate taking psychedelics and hanging out in a
| living room, out in nature, being at a club, festival or
| warehouse. The difference here is that the dugs are being used
| in a directed mental health setting with process and procedure.
| This has roots going back to Native American spiritual and
| communal experiences like the ayahuscaeros of today.
|
| Joe Rogan's old content postulates that religion as we know it
| today was formed from psychedelic experiences. For example, the
| bush that burned in front of Moses was acacia and widely known
| in the levant to have psychedelic properties
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwV8_Oc0EuY
| pacificmaelstrm wrote:
| Simple answer, It's not.
|
| Approaching a horrible situation with calm acceptance and
| resignation is pathological insanity.
|
| Don't let anyone tell you different.
| ganzuul wrote:
| "This life is only a prelude to eternity." - Seneca
|
| You can mostly avoid upsetting people with the God language by
| talking about love of truth instead.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Can't we say, with nearly as much accuracy, that this life is
| an epilogue to eternity?
| dartos wrote:
| I don't think so. Eternity, by definition, never ends, so
| this life couldn't come after the end.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Mmm. That presupposes infinite linear time. By most
| accounts, "this life" bookends about 13.7 billion years of
| linear time, but how do we understand the state of things
| before that?
|
| How could we understand the state of things once the heat
| death of the universe is a distant cosmic memory, and
| entropy no longer provides an "arrow of time"?
| jareklupinski wrote:
| it's a stop along the way from infinity to forever
|
| stretch your legs :)
| ipnon wrote:
| Griffiths was the driving force behind mainstream acceptance of
| psychedelic medicine with his work at Johns Hopkins. He showed
| that psilocybin was not only effective but was the most effective
| treatment for terminal psychiatric care and addiction, and he did
| it all within the mode of academic medical research. I hope his
| death was painless. A great scientist deserves no less.
| unihd2kno wrote:
| it was his character in combo with the delics. this kind of
| treatment can only be taught if aspiring teacher/psych/shrink
| is super-rational and NOT at all if said person is rational
| (=pseudo-rational)
| ggpsv wrote:
| This is not mentioned in the article, but upon learning about his
| prognosis Griffith worked on establishing an endowment to support
| the continued research on psychedelics and "secular spirituality
| and well-being".
|
| I recommend watching Griffith's video message [0] where he talks
| about the research and reflects on his condition. I also
| recommend the conversation with Sam Harris that someone else
| shared in a comment.
|
| [0]: https://griffithsfund.org/vision/
| rjbwork wrote:
| Sam Harris did an interview with him last year that was pretty
| good on the topic of psychedelics and death.
|
| https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/306...
| georgex7 wrote:
| Beautiful
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-05 23:01 UTC)