Psilocybin Subject

Commencing a two year study, Harvard professor Timothy Leary attempts to reform criminals at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute. The inmates were given doses of psilocybin and psychological therapy. Ultimately, the psilocybin-subjected inmates... 

Doblin stated that the difficult experiences reported by the majority of psilocybin subjects he interviewed wdte significantly underemphasized in Pahnke s thesis and in the subsequent reporting on the experiment. In fact, Pahnke never reported that one subject was injected with Thorazine as a tranquilizer during the experiment, a grave omission. 

Coverage of the Good Friday Experiment in both the scholarly and popular media was broad and largely but not universally positive. Doblin speculates that Pahnke s underemphasis on the difficult psychological struggles of most of the psilocybin subjects may be in part responsible for the unpreparedness of the many subsequent formal and informal experimenters for this aspect of the experience. 

This may be a good place to correct some common misconceptions about the effects of BZ and related belladonnoids. Those unfamiliar with the delirious state have often referred to BZ as hallucinogenic or psychotomimetic. It is undeniably hallucinogenic, but the term is hopelessly contaminated by its inexact use in reference to drugs like LSD and psilocybin. Such drugs produce striking illusions, but subjects generally know they are unreal. 

New insights into neural networks involved in such alterations in consciousness are likely to arise from in vivo imaging in the presence and absence of plant extracts correlated with subjective reports. As recently reported for psilocybin, chemical imaging provides key information on brain areas and transmitter receptors involved. 

They obtained the teonanactl plant from Mexicans whose trust they had won over enough to allow them to participate in a sacred mushroom ceremony. Roger Herr identified the teonanactl mushroom as Psilocybe Mexicana, and he asked Hofmann to do the biochemical analysis. Unable to establish a bioassay for the extracts he made from the mushrooms, Hofmann took the psilocin and psilocybin extracts himself and reported vivid subjective experiences that were similar to those of LSD. LSD, psilocin, and psilocybin were all similar to serotonin in their molecular structure. 

Both indoleamine (e.g., lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD psilocybin) and phenethylamine hallucinogens (e.g., mescaline) increased pupil diameter.26 There have been no systematic studies of the effects of these drugs on dynamic measures of the light reflex. Phencyclidine (PCP) does not cause marked changes in pupil size or light reflex. However, subjects intoxicated with PCP often show horizontal and vertical nystagmus.26... 

Some of the researchers who have experimented with synthesized mescaline, LSD, or psilocybin have remarked upon the similarity between drug-induced and spontaneous mystical experiences because of the frequency with which some of their subjects have used mystical and religious language to describe their experiences. These data interested the author in a careful examination and evaluation of such claims. An empirical study, designed to investigate in a systematic and scientific way the similarities and differences between experiences described by mystics and those facilitated by psychedelic drugs, was undertaken (Pahnke, 1966, 1967). First, a phenomeno-... 

The experience of the experimental subjects was certainly more like mystical experience than that of the controls, who had the same expectation and suggestion from the preparation and setting. The most striking difference between the experimentals and the controls was the ingestion of thirty milligrams of psilocybin, which it was concluded was the facilitating agent responsible for the difference in phenomena... 

One subject became fascinated by a newspaper headline and reportedly was able to read the entire article at a distance of thirty feet (Newland, 1962). Another subject, who became interested in studying famous paintings after ingesting thirty milligrams of psilocybin, assertedly lost his reading ability entirely while under the influence of the drug.1... 

The same subject, near the end of his "psilocybin high," reported still another alteration in the reading process ... 

Some toxins in mushrooms are alkaloids that cause central nervous system effects of narcosis and convulsions. Hallucinations occur in subjects who have eaten mushrooms that contain psilocybin. The toxic alkaloid muscarine is present in some mushrooms. 

Although this psilocybin experiment included a lot of "tender, loving care and no control subjects, it established a sound basis for hope The results warrant at least one controlled study. 

Substantial tolerance can be built up by repeated doses taken in close sequence. In 1961, Dr. Leo Hollister gave psilocybin to a subject on a daily basis for twenty-one days, starting with 1.5 rng. and increasing it to 27 mg. On the twenty-second day, the subject showed hardly any reaction to 15 mg. After a rest of several weeks, however, the same dose produced the normal degree of psychoactivity. 

Psilocybian mushrooms, psilocybin and psilocin can produce profound, awesome effects upon the mind. In research reported over the first two decades of study, subjects given psilocybin and other drugs in blind experiments were generally unable to distinguish this substance from LSD or mescaline of comparable dosage until several hours had passed. Recognizing psilocybin at that point was possible because of the shorter duration of its psychedelic effects. 

Stan Krippner, one of the subjects of the Harvard Psilocybin Project, gives another example ... 

The mechanism of the psychotogenic effect remains unclear. LSD and some natural hallucinogens such as psilocin, psilocybin (from fungi), bufotenin (the cutaneous gland Luellmann, Color Atlas of Pharmacology All rights reserved. Usage subject to terms... 

In a placebo-controlled study in eight healthy subjects, psilocybin 45-315 micrograms/kg had no effect on plasma concentrations of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), prolactin, or cortisol plasma concentrations of corticotropin (ACTH) were increased by doses of 215 and 315 micrograms/kg (14). 

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