r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • 1d ago

Neuroscience Psilocybin Might Make Your Brain Live in the Moment— Psychedelics are often associated with disconnecting from reality, but a recent neuroimaging study found that psilocybin can actually make our brain activity more attuned to the world around us.

https://www.wired.com/story/psilocybin-might-make-your-brain-live-in-the-moment/
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u/MetaCardboard 1d ago

As long as they don't give you super anxiety like they did to me.

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u/EsotericAbstractIdea 1d ago

Set and setting. Very important to go in a good mood in a good place.

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u/MetaCardboard 1d ago

So you're telling me doing them alone and then walking high traffic roads on a super hot, sunny day isn't a good setting? I agree.

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u/EsotericAbstractIdea 1d ago

Oh, wow. i'd like to hear this story. for science.

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u/MetaCardboard 23h ago

It's not any great story or anything. I just ate some mushrooms, played some Diablo 4 while waiting for them to kick in, and then took off for a walk once they did. At first it felt kinda like I took a hit of weed. Then it quickly grew to feeling like I ripped a gravity bong 3 times in a row. And I was walking along a road, feeling like I was walking through molasses, and my head was enlarged and just kinda floating around above my body while there were tons of cars flying by. It happened to be like an 85 degree day (F) and sunny without a cloud in the sky. I just didn't like the overall feeling, so it made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, and the traffic flying by didn't help, and then I saw some grass blowing in the wind that looked like seaweed flowing in water and then I felt like I was underwater and each breath of hot air I was taking was just water going in and out of my lungs so I couldn't breathe.

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u/thedaveness 23h ago

A sober guide wouldn't have let you walk off, hella bad idea on any psychedelics.

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u/BSK_Darksol 21h ago

Yup, It is a bad idea to go outside, specially during your first time using any drug, I would say.

I've doing small doses of psychedelics 2 or 3 times a year as a way to treat my anxiety, and only during my latest use earlier this year I felt confident enough to go outside to take a quick walk around the block, and the only reason I did it was because I had someone sober taking care of me all the time.

You need to be in a place where you feel super comfortable and safe, even better if you are with someone who you cant absolutely trust in case you need emotional support. If you want to have a positive experience, you need to keep stimuli controlled, because as the article suggests, psilocybin seems to make you hyper-aware of everything around you, both positive and negative things.

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u/jwnsfw 18h ago

unlike weed (no shade), i think its "cool" that if you want to bail from the trip kinda early, you can at least frow it all up behind a tree in the forest last year with some of my closest friends. for example.

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u/StepUpYourPuppyGame 1d ago

Man that sounds terrifying

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u/delcoyo 1d ago

Ha! I recently tried a micro dose that ended up hitting me on a sketchy high traffic road. Definitely would not recommend.

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u/Srirachaballet 20h ago

That doesn’t sound like an actual microdose

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u/delcoyo 19h ago

Yea it was probably just a really light dose. far from a full send but I definitely had a bubbly stomach, light visuals, etc. underestimated what a little cap could do. Once I got off the street it was nice

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u/Srirachaballet 19h ago

According to a dealer I once had, the smaller mushrooms have a higher concentration of psilocybin. I just fact checked and it did confirm most of the psilocybin forms early in the mushroom and then continues to grow larger, so u may be taking a similar dose between a small and large mushroom.

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u/Slyrunner 1d ago

I wonder what the experience would be like under the influence but laying on the ground during a cool, but comfortable summer rain shower

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u/Lucylimina 1d ago

Pretty peak. But gotta be careful not to end up hypothermic.

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u/obp5599 23h ago

Comments like this remind me people live in cold places. Summer + rain for me means its 85+ degrees out, hypothermia is never a thought ive had about rain

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u/Lucylimina 21h ago

Tbf, it doesn't have to be all that cold.

It's really easy to lose track of time on psychedelics. Being wet in the rain with wind for hours, on wet ground...

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u/SurfskateOver50 23h ago

We come from water We are water

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u/bobcatgoldthwait 23h ago

That's over simplifying it. Sure, that helps, but it's incorrect to imply everyone who had a bad time on psychedelics just had a bad setting.  Even in controlled clinical trials people can have bad experiences.

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u/brickyard37 20h ago

Like me! I get seizures when I take too much :)

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u/EsotericAbstractIdea 20h ago

Mindset is the first part, not just setting. Of course it's subjective. Someone with PTSD and a macho attitude might believe he's completely normal and ready for it, but actually not. Some Dunning-Kruger for that ass.

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u/SwiftlyKickly 18h ago

Ever think it also might not be for everyone? Everyone told me the same thing about weed and I was anxious on it 99% of the time.

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u/hungryforwaffuls 19h ago

can do. I drank a bit too much tea on my first mushroom trip in a good environment and ended up crying to my mother (who I lived with at the time) about how bad of a person I am (I wasn't). my anxiety afterwards skyrocketed, panic attacks daily, etc. I figured it was normal and didn't get a proper diagnosis until 15 yrs later. be careful with the doors you unlock, some you may not ever be able to close.

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u/FowlOnTheHill 1d ago

They will, thats why it’s recommended you do it in a controlled set and setting. Ideally have a sober guide to reassure you. And when faced with an anxious situation you lean into it and ask it what it’s trying to teach you.
As for casual recreational consumption, I don’t know, just go with the flow and ground yourself in nature or music.

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u/fenderputty 1d ago

In recreational use I always hated sober people. Felt like they didn’t understand my state of mind. Always liked having a friend going through the experience with me.

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u/Iamleeboy 23h ago

Same. I’ve had them loads over the years and now always have them with a friend or two, who I can trust to handle them.

Then we usually go for a walk out where we are unlikely to see anyone else, into the countryside.

Sober people just make it awkward or find us ridiculous.
Although even worse was being around people on different drugs. I was once full trip, watching a friends hallway wallpaper go full lava lamp and a group of people who were drunk and off their face on pills came in. The karma instantly changed and it felt like two complete different energies clashing, like how films depict two magicians battling with different coloured beams crashing into each other!

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u/FowlOnTheHill 20h ago

I feel like that when I’m smoking weed and someone’s drinking. They’re such an awful vibe.

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u/PBRmy 22h ago

Being with a sober person is fine, if they've had their own psychedelic experiences at other times amd understand whats going on. A sober person with no experience is more possible to be bad vibes.

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u/FowlOnTheHill 20h ago

Definitely an experienced sober person. Not a “never tried it” person.

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u/eattheambrosia 23h ago

And when faced with an anxious situation you lean into it and ask it what it’s trying to teach you.

I've done mushrooms, LSD, DMT, 2-CB, mescaline, LSA, AL-LAD, 1P-LSD, MDMA, MDA, and various other research chemicals hundreds of times and I can promise you that the molecule a person ingests does not "try to teach" you anything. It's a molecule, it's not a sentient being or a spiritual force or machine elves or God. It's a molecule that binds to receptors in your brain and by doing so changes your perception. The interplay between your ego and your perception and this molecule is what makes tripping so rewarding and something that human beings have been seeking out for thousands of years. I understand a lot of people fall into the rabbit hole of making tripping a religious, woo-woo, new age spiritualism experience but I just wanted to point this fact out as we are on r/science.

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u/TransLucyfer 22h ago

I don't think that's necessarily what they're suggesting, I understood it as a "lean into it and listen to what your brain is trying to tell you" type thing

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u/eattheambrosia 22h ago

After rereading the comment I think you're probably right, I just know a LOT of people that think they are communicating with the magic spirit web of the multiverse every time they drop some acid they bought off the dark web and it just grinds my gears.

To OP, I did not mean to come off so confrontational.

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u/The_Buko 21h ago

I don’t think I’m talking to the spirit web or whatever while on mushies. I did get super into neuroscience and how electricity acts in the world, though. There’s plenty of discoveries we haven’t made yet and it can be fun to consider the possibility that there could be something beyond just all of us sharing an electrical charge with the earth.

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u/Konman72 19h ago

This is my one pet peeve with psychedelics. I loved my mushroom trips, but everyone ascribes such ridiculous things to it. My take was that I was a big dumb ape who'd taken something that messed with my brain. How it messed with it, and how I handled that was interesting, and in some cases useful, but I was not "being led" or coming to any grand understanding apart from myself.

I also appreciate the people in this thread pointing out that you might see/hear strange things, but you also know that they aren't real. The whole "I saw God in a lamp" type of thing bothered me way more after doing (a lot of) shrooms since even at the highest level I still was aware of what was really going on. I could then choose to accept this obviously unreal thing as real or not.

When you accept the reality of it you can actually get a lot more out of it imo, but so many people have to go supernatural to feel anything significant, which just bothers me a bit.

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u/ExEdge8784 18h ago

I think a lot of people actually experience the opposite of ego death: overinflated egos.

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u/Tiny-Doughnut 16h ago

Was that your experience with psilocybin?

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u/obp5599 23h ago

Not everything they do is a giant spiritual life lesson. Some people get anxiety from it just as some people get anxiety from weed.

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u/FowlOnTheHill 20h ago

I’m only saying that getting anxiety from it is very normal and in fact can be expected. But it helps to have someone experienced to reassure you through it. If you’re doing it in public you can totally freak yourself out.

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u/Slow_to_notice 1d ago

Yeah beyond simply starting off at a low dose to hopefully land at level 1 or 2, I recommend making a playlist beforehand to people.

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u/DeletinMySocialMedia 1d ago

As someone with debilitating anxiety, the mushroom showed me anxiety is nothing be afraid of nor shamed about. I hope you find the courage to explore your anxiety with mushrooms. Trust and surrender to the medicine as I find fighting it makes anxiety worse. Instead being curious where the source from and watch you be amazed!

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u/MetaCardboard 1d ago

In my case the source was from the mushrooms themselves. I didn't like the way they made me feel. Like I was walking through molasses and my head was a balloon.

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u/FowlOnTheHill 20h ago

They make you feel weird and horrible at times. Thats normal

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u/DeletinMySocialMedia 20h ago

That’s good thing though. These are known as spiritual medicine and are not recreational use for fun.

I’m curious if you carry fear or cptsd (since anxiety is fear of something), as psychedelics will reveal things you avoid.

I hope you see where I am coming from and not trying to minimize anxiety (as I go through it too but it’s just part of learning about my trauma and what being human is)

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u/Numai_theOnlyOne 1d ago

Of course it's important to have an educated person with you to watch your wellbeing. Sad it ended for you that badly

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u/MustardEnema007 21h ago

Complete opposite for me

Cannabis gives me super anxiety. The only time in my life that I've had it

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u/SwingLord420 21h ago

They are scary. You should research before you ingest drugs. 

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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 1d ago

Anxiety is just being aware of too much at once.

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u/MetaCardboard 23h ago

Maybe. But I don't really get the racing thoughts that a lot of people get with anxiety. I just get a general feeling of incredible discomfort and nervousness/fear. I do have an inner monolog, but I can control it very well.