Tripping for depression
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What personal LSD experiences illustrate the subjective effects of psychedelics?
This is an ABC podcast.
I was on a mountain in Pai in the north of Thailand and I was tripping on Acid and I became a dot and then I started to go from like being one dot to being lots of dots and and sort of rotating around and expanding and contracting. I just sort of sat by myself in the dark in this beautiful place. Just enjoying being a little dot. I felt like everything was kind of simple and nice and it's really hard to describe in words. But yeah, Dotland. That was I think one of my best experiences.
One young woman's experience of tripping on the recreational drug LSD. Hi, I'm Lynn Malcolm with part two of our All-in-The-Mind series, exploring the latest science of psychedelics and their potential therapeutic value for mental illness.
My first LSD experience just brought me deep into my feelings in a way that I had not anticipated. And it wasn't always Easy. The feelings were difficult. It was scary to be losing control of the ego, to of who I was, of letting go and letting feelings well up in me. And I resisted it a lot. I wouldn't say that my first LSD experience was this profound mystical experience of connection, but it was this struggle between rational control and the emergence of these very powerful emotions. And it made made me realize that this was a way to get in touch with my feelings and that the LSD was helping build my capacity for emotions to flow through me. I feel like L S D has fundamentally helped to balance me and also to inspire me.
Rick Doblin, Director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS. In last week's All in the Mind, he spoke about the promising research using MDMA or ecstasy to assist in psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Today we'll hear how the psychedelic compound psilocybin may help treatment resistant depression. And a reminder that most psychedelic drugs are illegal and using them recreationally can be risky both physically and psychologically. Psychiatrist David Arizzo researches the brain, consciousness and psychedelics at Imperial College London. He says psychedelic drugs differ in several ways from other recreational drugs. Alcohol, stimulants and opiates work on a different system of the brain.
Typically a lot of those work in the dopamine system. The psychedelics do not. They work in an another system of the brain called the serotonin system. And they don't cause dependence. So it's not we don't see dependent use with psychedelics. And then the psychedelic experience that they evoke is a very special and very different from other compounds. And that is characterized by typically a sense of bliss, insightfulness. a sense of change in time and space. Things can be more things at once, a paradoxicality. Even sometimes almost a profound religious experience or mystical spiritual experiences are typically experienced during a psychedelic experience.
Dr. David Arizzo explains what it is about the psychedelic effect that may have something to contribute to the treatment of mental illness.
It creates a quite chaotic, expanded state of consciousness while the drug is active in the brain. And what is deeply fascinating is that when we think about other pharmacological interventions that can help people suffering different mental problems or illnesses There we don't think about the subjective effect of the compounds that they are important. But for the psychedelics and that's probably also why these sort of one off sessions can have long lasting effects.
How do researchers explain the brain’s serotonin‑based response to psychedelics versus other drugs?
The nature, the depth of this spiritual and meaningful experience that people can have on these drugs seems directly to have an effect.
David Arizzo. Countess of Wims and March, Amanda Fielding, is an English drug policy reformer. In nineteen ninety eight, she began the Beckley Foundation. It's a charitable trust to promote an evidence based approach to drug policy and neuroscientific research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain. Her aim is to investigate new ways of treating mental illness and to enhance well being and creativity.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What personal LSD experiences illustrate the subjective effects of psychedelics?
0:02–4:31
2
How do researchers explain the brain’s serotonin‑based response to psychedelics versus other drugs?
4:31–7:33
3
Why is set and setting considered crucial for safe psychedelic therapy?
7:33–10:19
4
What did the psilocybin trial reveal about its impact on treatment‑resistant depression?
10:19–14:31
5
How do psychedelic‑induced personality changes relate to long‑term therapeutic benefits?
14:31–18:26
6
What are the main safety concerns and risk‑mitigation strategies in psychedelic trials?
18:26–22:28
7
How does microdosing differ from full‑dose psychedelic therapy, and what does the evidence show?
22:28–27:43
8
What future research directions could solidify psychedelics as mainstream mental‑health treatments?
27:43–30:44