2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:08
A bizarre experiment recently conducted at McGill University in Quebec showed curious results that some people don't need to take psychedelics to experience similar effects
A new study found that if volunteers were given placebo (dummies), assuring that it is psilocybin (psychedelic substance), some of them have effects as if they were taking real psilocybin.
It is possible that such a discovery marks the beginning of the end of the era of psychedelic drug use. Why are they needed if the brain itself does an excellent job.
In an article published in the journal Psychopharmacology, researchers at McGill University in Quebec, Canada, described their real-life experiment using the most common human volunteers. All of these people were told that they would take part in a serious medical experiment.
Volunteer recruitment advertisements were posted on the website of the Montreal Neurological Institute (part of McGill University), so none of the 33 recruited suspected a trick, even when they entered the classroom and saw the room with controllers and guards.
In nature, psilocybin is found in the so-called hallucinogenic mushrooms.
In fact, both the controllers and the guards were hired actors, moreover, several "volunteers" were also hired actors. All subjects were divided into two groups, each of which had 7 actors and 16 people who were really ignorant of the forgery.
When all the groups were given special pill pills and indicated that it was a drug with a psychedelic effect, all 33 people took the drug, and soon the actors began to describe that they had different corresponding effects. After that, some real volunteers began to describe the same thing.
When the experiment was completed after 4 hours, all subjects were asked to indicate how much their consciousness had changed on a special 5-point scale.
So what are the results?
“There were significant individual differences in placebo effects: many participants reported no change at all, while others described effects consistent with moderate to high doses of psilocybin. Also, a majority (61%) of participants reported orally that they had there were certain psychedelic “glitches.” Some claimed to have seen the pictures on the wall move by themselves, others felt a change in gravity, one had the effect of an attractive wave, the article states.
So the placebo effect on psilocybin is quite successful? More importantly, was this experience legitimate?
Experts from Discover Magazine went over the experiment in detail and pointed out that the subjects' typical responses were rather vague, like "I feel bliss," "Epiphany has come," and none of the subjects reported actual visual hallucinations.
Also, even before they were told that it was not a real medicine, but a placebo, about 35% of the subjects said they suspected that they had been given a placebo, and only 16% were firmly convinced that they were taking the real medicine. …
On the other hand, many showed shock and disbelief after being told about the real background of this experiment. They claimed they felt cheated. As far as legality is concerned, the experiment was fully approved by the ethics committee.
It turns out that there may indeed be a response to placebo as a psychedelic drug, albeit at a low level. In this regard, it would be curious to know if these subjects had previously taken any real psychedelic drugs, such as those given for the treatment of post-traumatic stress syndrome or for the treatment of drug addiction, and how they would compare the effect of real drugs with that when they were taking a placebo.
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