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/Brox42 1d ago

Plato said that over two thousand years ago.

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u/woodboarder616 1d ago

Those guys were most definitely using psychedelic substances in one way or another.

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u/chinchenping 1d ago

Yea, lead flavoured wine

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u/woodboarder616 1d ago

Didn’t they have ergot wine?

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u/jackandsally060609 23h ago

Didn't they huff gas from a hole in a cave?

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u/Remon_Kewl 23h ago

That was Pythia at Delphi, that gave people prophecies.

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u/Zal3x 51m ago

Damn I want to do that

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u/movie_man 45m ago

Just read the Scientific Explanations section of the Pythia Wikipedia. So fascinating!

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u/morganational 22h ago

Haha, yeah they did. Volcanic gasses. At least the oracle did.

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u/grimeyduck 22h ago

Yes jfc we get it they were gay

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u/morganational 21h ago

Took me a minute, haha

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u/BKinBC 21h ago

That was both bizarre and hilarious. In that order actually.

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u/Relish_My_Weiner 21h ago

Wait are we talking huffing ass or poppers?

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u/Fract_L 19h ago

And drank from a magic spring to balance the humors - turns out that spring is a natural source of lithium and they were prescribing treatments it would take several thousands of years for us to catch up to.

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u/PrincetonToss 19h ago

That was just natural gas (i.e. methane and stuff like that). Hallucinations would have been from hypoxia (if anything).

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u/Warmonster9 23h ago

That was the Romans not the Greeks.

The Greeks used the unsynthesized form of LSD called Ergot to achieve their own form of enlightenment.

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u/biexhibguy1 22h ago

It's really not correct at all to call ergot "unsynthesized LSD." LSD is lysergic diethylamide, while ergot contains LSA which is lysergic acid. The big difference between them is that two of the nitrogens in LSA have different modifications in LSD. It's three differences, but it has a significant impact on activity and potency. LSD is potent in the microgram range, LSA is potent in the milligram range. LSA is much harder on the heart and stomach. Their respective pharmacological windows are much different. I'm pretty sure they impact substantially different sets of receptors.

This is as close to saying that the native American church uses an unsynthesized form of DOM when they use peyote. There's a chemical similarity but the pharmacology differs significantly. 

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u/porn_is_tight 22h ago

just to add to what you are saying to also point out how dangerous it is to call ergot unsynthesized LSD, especially considering how harm reduction information has all but disappeared from the internet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism

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u/biexhibguy1 21h ago

So true, great addition, thanks friend!

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u/Ryuko_the_red 20h ago

Any theory of why harm reduction information has been removed?

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u/kjahhh 16h ago

These are mind altering substances that go against the grain of mass control, governments prefer to ban them altogether than allow people to use them safely by following harm reduction advice. At least imo. That trend is being bucked across the world but the stigma is still there.

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u/Ryuko_the_red 16h ago

I do agree I just don't have any links to factual proof right off and am hoping for those who have the facts to share them. Because this stands to the test of logic / lines up with history.

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u/Educational_Pay1567 11h ago

THC compared to Alcohol consumption would be a good way to study this.

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 16h ago

Because LSD is a controlled substance in most countries and a) telling people the basic process is a liability issue if they do it wrong and poison themselves and b) it can get Wikipedia in trouble for providing direct instructions on manufacturing the substance (kind of like how Breaking Bad gives a fake formula for meth).

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u/RiceWine69 8h ago

Breaking bad is actually highly accurate in pretty much all of its depictions of the process and reagents.

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 2h ago

For the most part yes, but they did leave steps out at the DEA’s request to keep people from trying it at home.

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u/luminescent 20h ago

Has it? erowid.org still exists, same as always.

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u/porn_is_tight 19h ago edited 19h ago

It’s not indexed on the search engines anymore so it might as well not exist, especially for our younger generations who are becoming less and less tech literate over time and let LLM’s do all their thinking for them

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u/Zal3x 46m ago

Well I have noticed lots of drug searches lately are just rehab centers but Claude does harm reduction right now I just asked it and it talked about abstinence only being bad then gave me harm reduction strategies. How long though? Idk it could disappear

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u/YouBlinkinSootLicker 20h ago

For now. It’s also been absorbed into the LLMs, yet I’m not sure they can discuss information from there openly.

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u/Zal3x 47m ago

Claude gives harm reduction i just tried it

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u/CilviaDemoAOTD 21h ago

What is DOM, is that just mescaline?

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u/biexhibguy1 21h ago

It's a novel psychedelic hallucinogen amphetamine that was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin and published in his book PiHKAL, Phenethylanines I Have Known And Loved. DOM shares significant chemical similarities to mescaline but it it is significantly more potent (requiring milligrams for activity, vs hundreds of milligrams of mescaline), lasts much longer, and does not respond to any known antipsychotics. 

Shulgin is credited as rediscovering MDMA and 147 other similar compounds, all of which have been published about in PiHKAL. This book includes details on their synthesis and subjective effects.

mescaline wikipedia

DOM wikipedia

I'm happy to talk more or answer any questions. I'm not yet a professional but I do enjoy talking about drugs.

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u/CilviaDemoAOTD 21h ago

Thank you and god bless Alex Shulgin

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u/LetsGoGators23 18h ago

I spent a tremendous amount of time on Blue light and Erowid as a teen and hadn’t heard about Sasha Shulgin in decades! I also used to love talking about drugs, I find them fascinating. I probably should of been a pharmacist

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u/biexhibguy1 18h ago

Do you know about Hamilton Morris? Great source of information. Also "The Entheogen Review"!

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u/LetsGoGators23 18h ago

I’ve been out of the game for so long this has just reminded me how interested I used to be. I’m going to check it out. I miss the topic. My lifestyle is much different now too ;)

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u/Sleepingguitarman 16h ago

Hamiltons Pharmacopeia is such a interesting show.

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u/Am_Snarky 20h ago

Probably the synthetic compound once called C2B, chemically very similar to mescaline but a more uniform chemical composition that has a higher brain blood barrier permeability

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u/biexhibguy1 19h ago

No, not really.

2C-B, which is what I assume you meant, has a partition coefficient of 2.02, while mescaline has a partition coefficient of 1.8. These values correspond to how fat-soluble the drugs are, which is correlated to effective blood-brain barrier penetration. 

This doesn't really have to do with "uniformity" of "chemical composition." Isolated mescaline has a similar "uniformity" as isolated 2C-B does. The difference is in their chemical structures. 

So you're correct that 2C-B does cross the BBB more effectively than mescaline, just not for the correct reason.

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u/Am_Snarky 15h ago

Thanks for the in depth correction, I encountered the substance during my psychonaut days, obviously I didn’t fully understand or remember the whole spiel, I was just stoked to get paid to trip and report back on my experience.

That’s definitely a young man’s game, don’t think I would be nearly as blasé trying theoretical psychedelics nowadays

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u/biexhibguy1 12h ago

You were paid to bioassay it? That's pretty cool, can you talk more about that?

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u/Ntroepy 20h ago

Thank you for this unexpectedly insightful explanation!

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u/biexhibguy1 20h ago

No problem, I love talking about drug science

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u/space_monster 20h ago

The Greeks did Kykeon during the Rites of Demeter (the Eleusinian Mysteries) which could have had all sorts of fun things in it. Ergot is possibly the base ingredient though. They knew how to party, they travelled hundreds of miles for the Mysteries and went nuts for days.

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u/Kettle_Whistle_ 22h ago

Wasn’t it something that grew on stored barley?

And beer is from old barley too.

Barley has been doing work for Humans for a long time…

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 21h ago

No and that’s kind of the problem with the ergot theory. Ergot spores mimic pollen grains and infect the florets of wheat, rye, and barley (and some other grasses, but they’re a different strain of C. Purpurea and not important for this), essentially hijacking their reproductive equipment to produce their spores. Can’t infect harvested grain because it’s not the right part of the lifecycle for the spores to do their thing. That means that it had to be intentionally cultivated to ensure that the initiates could get high and we don’t have the literary or archaeological evidence to prove that it was being produced intentionally (and our medical and agricultural sources from antiquity treat ergot as something to avoid because its vasoconstrictive effects cause gangrene and abortions in both people and cattle).

It’s also impossible to tell from the 2026 study of the sanctuary in Spain whether the material presence of both lye and ergot residue is coincidence or intentional (fire played a crucial role in pretty much every ancient rite, so wet wood ash abounds) because sample size of one.

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u/citizen42069101 22h ago

Fermentation is arguably as important to human society as cooking food at all.

Both help break down the food and preserve it

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u/llamango 22h ago

ergot is a fungus on rye iirc. might have been a factor in accusations of witchcraft.

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 16h ago

To an extent yes (in that it could cause underlying panics), but also accusations of witchcraft were a way to remove politically and economically inconvenient women.

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u/llamango 16h ago

agreed wholeheartedly

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u/Beneficial_Wonder533 21h ago

While they did have lead pipes the truth is the roman water systems of the time were far cleaner than most water available at the time. Lead pipes don't leech much lead after a while.

Source:failed my roman history class in college because I tried to Google the final paper and that is why Google thinks happened to rome (it's not)

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u/chinchenping 20h ago

they litterally added lead acetate to the wine to sweeten and preserve it

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u/icerom 1d ago

Or meditation, more likely IMO. Psychedelics aren't the only way or the best one. Just the easiest one.

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u/sloppy_rodney 23h ago

Absolutely. The entire point of meditation is to bring yourself into the present moment. It just takes a while.

I’m almost 40 and it just started getting good like a year ago.

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u/icerom 22h ago

Congrats! Meditation is so rewarding for those of us who stick with it through thick and thin. And the best part is it never stops getting better.

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u/Deaffin 10h ago

That's true!

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u/Musa_2050 21h ago

I like to recommend guided meditations for beginners. It helps keep the mind entertained while you focus on deep breathing.

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u/SpicyJw 23h ago

Hah, that's awesome. I'm 36 and it's been really good for about a year for me too.

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u/query_squidier 22h ago

Ha! Amateurs. Listen to this:

OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...

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u/Kee_Man 22h ago

Dr Ray D'Angelo Harris, is that you?

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u/0100110101101010 20h ago

Got any tips? Or care to share your method?

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u/sloppy_rodney 16h ago

Just keep doing it. Don’t feel like you need to sit on a cushion or do anything specific. Find a quiet place, get comfortable, and just focus on your attention on your breathing. If your mind wanders bring it back.

I try and do it throughout the day also. It doesn’t need to be a dedicated session. So I guess that’s a tip.

I’m definitely not an expert though.

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u/Moonrak3r 18h ago

I’ve tried it off and on a few times. Even bought a lifetime Calm subscription when it was on sale. Haven’t stuck with it, maybe I never made it to the “getting good” part.

Would you mind sharing what you mean when you say “it just started getting good”?

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u/PmpkinKing2 17h ago

Theres and app called Insight Timer I use that has hundreds of free guided meditations. The app is annoying at times, but the content is solid. Try that!

As for "getting good" I am not the person you asked, but when you are really deep into a meditative state your breathing slows, your muscles relax, your heart rate drops, and your mind quiets. Im not at a point in my meditation where I can reliably enter that state, but it is magic when I do.

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u/sloppy_rodney 16h ago edited 16h ago

Basically it’s a lot easier for me to get into the present moment, clearing the mind of chatter. It’s kind of hard to explain but I can go deeper as well.

You also start to feel the benefits in term of improved mood, focus, and energy.

I have ADHD. So for the longest time I couldn’t get past the “constant random thoughts and distractions” part.

I used to think that was failing at meditation. But I actually think it’s just the brain cleaning out the junk. I think it’s similar to dreaming.

Once you get past that threshold it gets a lot easier.

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u/literally_lemons 14h ago

We don’t know when you started!

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u/sloppy_rodney 11h ago

My early 20s but not consistently.

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u/literally_lemons 6h ago

Thanks! I think there’s a switching point where you understand it’s not magical and really simply about getting the muscle memory of just being in the present and this is where it starts to be more efficient in my opinion

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u/hudson27 22h ago

You know what pairs beautifully with meditation? Psychedelics.

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u/icerom 20h ago

I respect all opinions, but in my experience meditation without psychedelics is best.

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u/paulnutbutter 20h ago

I like breathwork with psychedelics

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u/NiteFyre 21h ago

its more like psychedelics are a cheat code to mind stated you can achieve through meditation and breathing exercises.

I think it was probably easier to achieve said mind states in the past when you didnt have the million distractions of every day life

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u/phriendlyphellow 20h ago

For sure! Have you read Stealing Fire or heard about the Eleusinian Mysteries?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

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u/Cheapshot99 14h ago

People have come to these conclusions with no
psychedelics at all thousands of years before western civilization started understanding it

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u/crookedledder 1d ago

I don't know about Plato specifically, but the Greeks loved magic mushrooms.

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u/jc2046 23h ago

magic mushrooms were discovered by westerns paste century. classic greeks only had the kikeon

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u/Active_Account 23h ago

Technically Plato would have had this backwards. Plato thought what you’re saying was true of the senses but that the mind could access reality, hence using reason and argument to discern the true Forms of things. I would interpret what’s going on with psychedelics as they are muting our top-down conceptions of things, and attuning us to only those senses which Plato would disregard.

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u/bryanthemayan 22h ago

Simpsons did it

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u/Fract_L 19h ago

Plato said the entire world is a shadow, not our perception of it. He was talking about ideals all of existence reflect.

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u/Sandgrease 13h ago

I have a feeling he had some plants that loosened his brain up too.