2015 - VICE - What it Feel Like to Treat Depression with Magic Mushrooms [HTML].pdf

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easier with SSRIs [a type of1 medication commonly used
in the treatment of major depressive disorder and anxiety
disorders]."
At the beginning of this year, despite taking a higher dose
of SSRI, Sue's depression deepened. "I was thinking
obsessively and negatively, constantly," she says, adding
that she tried
mindfulness
and therapy – which both helped
a little – but that the pain "was still there".
However, a chance find on the internet led Sue to some
fledgling yet pioneering research around "micro-dosing",
the taking of small amounts of psilocybin to relieve
depression – psilocybin being the active hallucinogen in
magic mushrooms. "I'd read an article about research using
MDMA for depression, and my raving years meant I wasn't
adverse to recreational drugs, but I'd not touched magic
mushrooms for years," says Sue.
This Is What It Feels Like to
Treat Depression with
Magic Mushrooms
By Claire Colley
September 7, 2015
When Sue* greets me, she's all sparkly eyes and smiles.
Beaming, she shakes my hand firmly and, as she sits, talks
animatedly about her dash from the office to our meeting.
"I haven't had this much energy in years," she says. "In
fact, it was the polar opposite. But now – my mood, my
energy, my outlook on life has changed for the better. And
all thanks to magic mushrooms? It feels too remarkable to
be true, but that appears to be the case."
When 35-year-old Sue was 25, she experienced her first
serious depression. At the time, she was flummoxed as to
why the "black dog" had descended. "I'd known low mood
since my teens," says Sue, "but that was nothing compared
to the blast of this new and unexpected pain. It's very
difficult to explain how depression feels, but I felt dead –
nothing but blackness." Sue stopped sleeping, and
struggled with her work as a research analyst. "I use to cry
in the toilets, hopeless and broken," she tells me.
Sue's first bout of real depression lasted a year, and once
the initial chronic period lifted, she still felt low most of
the time: "I could put a face on, and didn't tell anyone apart
from my doctor," she says. Like millions of others, Sue
was given anti-depressants: "They stopped me crying,
made me numb and I could just paper over the cracks
Dr James Fadiman, Ph.D
The forums Sue was visiting were full of people talking
about micro-dosing, and it was here that she came upon
Jim Fadiman. Dr James Fadiman, Ph.D. has a vast and
varied CV; he's been a business consultant, an author of
The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide
and co-founder of the
Sofia University in California. Now 76, his younger years
were spent as part of Menlo Park, a California-based team
of researchers who studied the use of psychedelics in the
1960s.
"We were giving high doses of LSD to people for
therapeutic reasons and creative problem solving, which
was very successful with a lower dose of LSD," he tells
me. "People had been very excited about LSD, in part
because it looks a lot like the serotonin molecule, which
regulates mood."
Indeed, at the time, LSD was
the most researched
psychiatric drug in the world,
with over a thousand studies
conducted on it. However, in 1968, when the US
government made LSD Schedule 1 – meaning they
believed it to have no medical use and a high risk of abuse,
and therefore made it illegal – they halted 60 different
projects, and the Menlo Park team's research was
effectively outlawed.
Four decades later, Fadiman's interest in the therapeutic
uses of psychedelics has remained.
"Around five years ago, a friend said he'd been micro-
dosing," Fadiman tells me, referring to the ingestion of a
psychedelic substance in a minute quantity. "Albert
Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, was a
proponent and suggested he try it, but I had no idea what
he was talking about.The psychedelic research I'd been
involved in was full of psychedelic flashes and spiritual
experiences, and here was this micro – or sub-perceptual –
dose, and I got curious. I don't do 'research' now; I do
'search', and this isn't about a peer-reviewed scientific
paper – I simply asked people I knew who had access to
psychedelics if they'd be interested in taking this very small
amount, and eventually came up with my method."
enhancer' – people say things just seemed to work really
well, and because it's such a small dose, it impacts on
mood without changing behaviour."
Although he wasn't specifically studying depression, per
se, several research participants told Fadiman that micro-
dosing had alleviated their low mood. The forums were full
of these kind of accounts, which is how Sue chanced upon
Fadiman. "I wrote to Jim, and he sent me the protocol.
Intrigued, I asked a friend who had some mushrooms if I
could have a small amount," she says.
One of Sue's micro-doses
Sue ground the mushrooms up and started with a quarter of
a teaspoon on day one. "I felt a marginal effect – just a
slight up, but nothing more," she recalls. "I had energy and
stayed awake into the afternoon, which, with my low
energy, was unusual."
Fadiman's protocol consists of a suggestion that
participants who already have their own psychedelic
materials micro-dose every fourth day for a month and
make notes of how they are feeling. A micro-dose ranges
from a tenth to a twentieth of a usual dose. "If people say
they're noticing [the psychedelic effects], I advised them to It was the effect on day two that really struck Sue: "I was
lower their dose. The rocks [shouldn't] glitter, even a little," amazed – my obsessive negative thinking literally just
stopped. Even when I tried to find the negative thoughts,
says Jim.
they weren't there; they had just disappeared"
The word spread and people started asking Fadiman for
information on micro-dosing. "People write in and say
Sue isn't the only participant to experience marked effects.
they're interested. One young man wanted to find out if it
One subject, a Parkinson's disease sufferer, reported that
would help him stutter less; it has," says Fadiman.
after a month of micro-dosing LSD, his Parkinson's
"Another stopped smoking."
symptoms weren't improved, but his underlying depression
So far, Fadiman has collected around a hundred reports,
and the results are coming in daily. "I then follow it up
after another month," he says. "What people say is that
micro-dosing appears to improve practically everything
you do, just a little bit. One report called it an 'all chakra
was. "I had a report from one person who was so clinically
depressed, he'd been on disability," says Fadiman. "He
started micro-dosing and, for several weeks, said he felt
functional, able to manage his life. Then he ran out and
regressed. We know it helps with mild depression, but this
person is also saying something more."
While the research thus far seems to indicate that micro-
dosing can be beneficial, a few of Fadiman's subjects have
reported unpleasant side-effects, and he warns it's not for
everyone. Indeed, Sue has had one experience that she says
will make her more careful with dosing: "I tried a new
batch and took the same amount, but it was stronger, and I
felt trippy and unpleasant," she says. "This isn't about
taking drugs for pleasure."
While psychedelics aren't known for their addictive
properties, I ask Fadiman if there's any danger in that
respect when it comes to people regularly micro-dosing.
"It's unlikely that anyone will become physically
dependent on compounds that are inherently anti-
addictive," he explains. "If you take the same psychedelic
every day, it stops working."
Fadiman isn't alone in his interest in the therapeutic
properties of psilocybin, and as the cultural restrictions
have begun to be lifted, a few new studies have been
launched into larger doses and depression. One
study
showed
that brains affected by psilocybin had different
connectivity between some cortical regions, which might
chemically short circuit patterns of negative thinking. A
team at Imperial College London,
under Professor David
Nutt,
is currently studying the effects psilocybin can have
on treatment-resistant depression.
So might micro-dosing be as effective a depression reliever
in the long-term as it appears in the short-term? Fadiman
won't be able to know with the data currently available to
him; more formal scientific studies are going to have to be
done on micro-dosing before anyone can deduce anything
for certain. But just as a friend recommends a home
remedy for more straightforward medical issues, so micro-
dosing joins the tradition when it comes to matters of the
mind.
Sue, who's just finished her first month of micro-dosing,
says she's already telling friends who suffer from
depression about her experience. "I've really been helped,"
says Sue, who says she'll continue to use micro-dosing as
long as she can.
"There's no comparison between micro-dosing and taking
anti-depressants," she says, adding that while she won't
stop taking her SSRIs until she's discussed it with her GP,
she's resolute in feeling that: "Anti-depressants have never
worked for me, and micro-dosing does. I can't explain it,
and to be honest I don't care, because I feel like me – a
whole, content me – for the first time in years."
*Name has been changed to protect anonymity.
If you are concerned about the mental health of you or
someone you know, talk to Mind on 0300 123 3393 or at their
website,
here.

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