October 27, 2011
| 
9
Perhaps magic mushrooms really are magic. In fact, recent research suggests that shrooms could augment the openness of our personality, also effectively sticking a leg out to trip our brains before we lose our sense of openness that could occur as we age. And these aren’t the first whispers we’ve heard of psychedelic mushrooms’ positive effects. Earlier research has shown has shown that shrooms may better overall mental health.
Similar to LSD, magic mushrooms affect the central nervous system to induce (sometimes wild) distortion of perceptions. They don’t cause users to hallucinate, rather, they tweak reality. While considered to be more mild than LSD, shrooms can enhance colors, emotions, sounds and textures. The type of “trip” depends heavily on a user’s mental well-being and environment when taking the drug. A “bad trip,” can occur when users feel anxiety, paranoia and fear, often induced in a highly structured setting or when harboring negative emotions when taking the drug.
A NYC MFA student blogged about her first-time experience using shrooms:
My head wasn’t cloudy (the way one’s thoughts can be muddled when drunk) and with the city being an explosion of stimuli, my mind zipped through so many connections. I was aware of all of them, if only briefly.
If this experience could be teased out, however subtly, and bled into our everyday consciousness, would we want that? To be open to so many connections? Openness, the welcoming of new ideas and experiences, is one of the five overarching personality traits in psychology, and it tends to decrease as we age, if it changes at all.
In a Johns Hopkins study, 52 participants were given one high dose of psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) on site, the effects of which were monitored for a period of 14 months. The participants who said they experienced a “mystical” experience at onset reported higher degrees of openness 14 months later.
Experiential reports from participants can be as slippery as magic mushroom trips themselves. However, overall, users and their families were pleased with a heightened level of openness in their loved ones. Previous research also shows potential for psilocybin use in anxiety and depression treatments. However, we don’t know if shrooms’ effects are permanent or if they actually fade over time. More importantly, shrooms can be dangerous, especially for those with existing mental conditions: study researchers warn readers against trying the drug on their own.
But let’s stretch our suspension of disbelief: say psilocybin is a miracle personality booster. Say that science effectively ridded the drug of dangers and put users in a nice, wondrous padded place whereby they could have a “mystical” experience…Would we want that?
As a treatment method, I could see the benefits — losing debilitating anxiety or easing irrational fears. But as a recreational boost, some magic dust that’s just supposed to make us better, more open? Would we still be ourselves then? Would this be a new, improved me or an artificial version? Would my mom still be herself if she lost her narrow Southern view of religion? I’m not so sure.
If risk wasn’t an issue, would you do it? Or, would you want your parents, siblings, spouse or friends to participate in drug-induced personality boot camp?
About the Author: I’m an Interactive TV Producer in New York City; a writer and former chemist. I've seen people do anything to Feel Normal. Follow on Twitter @cassierodenberg.
9 CommentsAdd a Comment
You must log in or register as a ScientificAmerican.com member to submit a comment.
Faster-than-light neutrinos explained? 
My genetic profile says I’d be a heroin addict
Antarctica's Erratic Climate Shaped Icefish Evolution
The bacteria in your belly Pt. 2 - Adults
Ashes, Yarmulkes and the Hijab: Communitas and Religious Symbols
Tomorrow in Charlotte: 'How the Web is Changing the Way Science Is Communicated, Taught and Done.'
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
Share
Email
Print
I would do it
Link to thisI enjoyed the experience, years ago, and I still use them in a limited ceremonial context today.
Link to thisWhy not? If you are doing it by choice, then it does not seem to me to be intrinsically different than many other things you could do to become more like your ideal self, whether it be taking anti-depressants, seeing a therapist, taking night classes, etc. Any sort of self-improvement effort has the possibility that the result may not be exactly what you had planned, especially those which open up your mind.
As for coercive “boot camps”, the article I read mentioned that previous studies done on unwilling participants had negative personality results, not positive. So it seems that a person has to want an improvement for anything useful to occur.
Link to thisDoes deep culture shock make people into “different people”? What about reading a profoundly brilliant book? What about experiencing a new taste or meeting a new person? The answer to all these questions is “yes” — if only slightly. A person who likes chocolate is a different person from someone who has never tasted chocolate, even if everything else about the two people is the same. But you’d never question the utility of those experiences the way you’re questioning magic mushrooms.
If your mom read a life-changing book and came out of the experience without her “narrow Southern view of religion”, you wouldn’t worry. The only reason you question magic mushrooms is because they happen to be highly stigmatized.
Link to this“Would my mom still be herself if she lost her narrow Southern view of religion?”
Rather then not being her self I would argue that she would be at a higher level of her potential self. That potential that lies within us all on the path to becoming . . . transcending the narrow perspectives that keep us anchored to neuroticism, narcissism, stigmatism, and so many other -isms our society is stuck with.
Link to thisPsilocybin, and other commonly available substances have incredible potential, not only for expanding limitations in personality, but healing long-standing psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, and unresolved wounding and loss. Of course, there’s no money in it for the pharmaceutical companies – these powerfully effective, low cost materials compete directly with the Big Pharma’s woefully ineffective (but highly profitable) drugs. So they will never be made legal or available for practitioners and their clients who could benefit from them. The best option for those interested in exploring the potential of these materials might be to do this work on your own, or with a trusted sitter or partner. Googling terms like “journeyworkers guide” might be a good place to start.
Link to thisI think that if you are the best person that you can be taking psilocybin under these prescribed conditions probably isn’t going to change you at all. On the other hand if there is room for improvement or specifically you have problems with anxiety, obssesive compulsion, migraine head aches, or just plain old depression taking a psilocybin trip could be just what the doctor ordered.
They say a glass of wine a day can help prevent heart disease. Well, I have found that taking Psilocybe mushrooms once a month or so gives me makes me more productive, creative, happy and gives me great clarity.
For those reasons and others I decided to join the Psilocybe Lacrosse Society ( http://psilocybelacrosse.bravehost.com ) . Why not move towards greater goodness?
Link to thisHallucinogens, and probably Cannabis should be considered one of them, are dangerous drugs, having unpredictable consequences in some people. Old work on the “Psichedelic personality” – for example: Lalonde P, 1973 – pointed that the kind of persons that would consider taking one of these drugs is just the kind of people prone to have more harm from these drugs. Some cases of relievement from authority figures internalized pressure, the kind of psychodynamic in writer’s cramp may exist, but this can be all. The ratio benefits / risks of hallucinogens is very heavily on the side that risks overwhelmingly surpass any benefit, and benefits from this drugs are just very rare, probably none. Watch your step !. Salut +
Link to thisBeen there, done that and lost the t-shirt.
I don’t see anything wrong with this at all. Doing so in a controlled environment is much safer than the way I tried it!
Link to this