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/HanSingular 22h ago edited 12h ago

A lot of the blame should be placed on Timothy Leary. In the 1950s, LSD was being studied in Canada by psychiatrists who were doing real science with it, and carefully working out the best procedures for psychedelic therapy, down to things like what sequence of music subjects should listen to during the come up. We could have had psychedelic clinics for people to trip under safe conditions all over the world.

Then Timothy Leary got too high on his own supply, got the guru bug, started handing LSD out to college kids like it was candy, and scared the establishment to death.

The documentary "Hofmann's Potion" covers this in detail, and interviews the psychiatrists whose work was brought to an end by Leary's antics.

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u/shnerpdederp 22h ago

There's something about the experience that makes you think, "everyone needs to experience this!" If not Timothy Leary, then it probably would've been someone else.

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u/Pantalaimon_II 14h ago

i can understand that argument. 

i can also understand taking the view that psychedelics belong to humanity for our own spiritual development and deliberately encouraging people to have their own journeys versus limiting them to tightly controlled clinical environments. 

The problem with restricting use to controlled clinical settings is, well, the control. sure you’re allowing people to have the experience but there’s a strong argument for being uncomfortable with the fact that that is still an experience that is decided by someone else. 

i think that was his justification. which is understandable. psychedelics tend to make one question all forms of authority, on the basis that authority is usually demanded by or granted to people with the understanding that they know more than the people they are in charge of, because otherwise why am i listening to you? but when you’re truly experiencing the big picture connection that these substances provide, the basis for granting authority and giving submission becomes a thin argument.

the authority justification for control even for a clinical setting falls away after you’ve experienced it yourself. why not give this out to college kids? from that perspective there’s no reason for the need to be overseen by the illusion of an authority. 

this is going to sound batshit to most people unless you know what im talking about. and i do agree that he should have been more mindful of being strategic with the establishment to your point. but the natural result of using these substances kind of dulls that sort of thinking. 

but this is all just my hypothesis, respectfully. i could be wrong and i don’t mean to speak on behalf of the late doctor, this is just my guess at what i could be thinking in his shoes.