Psilocybin can also induce suicidal despair in a non-trivial fraction of users. I would highly recommend against its use by anybody who isn’t extremely emotionally stable to begin with.
Cites or numbers for non-trivial? I looked for info on psilocybin and suicide, and the only review I found cited listed, after I jailbroke a copy, just one suicide and few deaths.
I haven’t looked into psilocybin in as much detail as LSD, but I had assumed it was considered very safe since it seemed to be the hallucinogen of choice in recent American research.
Personal experience. Psilocybin trips vary wildly, but everybody who uses it regularly eventually encounters an episode of extreme despair. (It’s not as bad as LSD, wherein you can very easily get caught in a mental loop—which if you’re thinking negative thoughts will send you into an emotional deathspiral—but it’s definitely a tangible risk)
It’s not that it induces despair, per se, but it heightens emotional response to stimuli considerably. (Particularly in the very high dosages necessary to induce hallucinations.) It’s necessary to strictly control your environment.
Psilocybin can also induce suicidal despair in a non-trivial fraction of users. I would highly recommend against its use by anybody who isn’t extremely emotionally stable to begin with.
Cites or numbers for non-trivial? I looked for info on psilocybin and suicide, and the only review I found cited listed, after I jailbroke a copy, just one suicide and few deaths.
I haven’t looked into psilocybin in as much detail as LSD, but I had assumed it was considered very safe since it seemed to be the hallucinogen of choice in recent American research.
Personal experience. Psilocybin trips vary wildly, but everybody who uses it regularly eventually encounters an episode of extreme despair. (It’s not as bad as LSD, wherein you can very easily get caught in a mental loop—which if you’re thinking negative thoughts will send you into an emotional deathspiral—but it’s definitely a tangible risk)
It’s not that it induces despair, per se, but it heightens emotional response to stimuli considerably. (Particularly in the very high dosages necessary to induce hallucinations.) It’s necessary to strictly control your environment.