New Research: Tripping on Magic Mushrooms The Key To Happiness

New research from Johns Hopkins University confirms psilocybin experiences are likely to increase one’s feeling of well-being.

Research on psychoactive drugs has long been banned or simply ignored. Thankfully, a new wave of psilocybin research - psilocybin is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms - is currently underway. Since the year 2000 researchers at the Johns Hopkins University have been conducting studies on the various effects of psilocybin.

The most recent psilocybin study published from the Johns Hopkins University is “Survey study of challenging experiences after ingesting psilocybin mushrooms: Acute and enduring positive and negative consequences”. It was published August 30, 2016.

THE STUDY

The study had 1993 participants which completed an online survey about the worst “bad trip” they experienced after consuming magic mushrooms. 78% of participants were male, the average age was 30, 51% had a college or graduate degree, and 90% used magic mushrooms two or more times.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

Participants reported severe negative consequences in significant numbers. After consuming psilocybin, 2.6% of participants report manifesting aggressive or violent behavior. 2.7% required medical assistance and a significant 7.6% sought treatment for enduring psychological symptoms. Most alarmingly, the study states “ Three cases appeared associated with the onset of enduring psychotic symptoms and three cases with attempted suicide.” However, when conducting psilocybin research themselves, and administering psilocybin in a controlled and safe environment such negative consequences were not observed. Therefore, it is possible that the adverse effects are a consequence of the surroundings and the mental state in which the drug was taken.

POSITIVE EFFECTS

Despite the reported negative consequences, 84% of participants report that they felt an increase in well-being after the magic mushrooms “trip”. The dose, and the difficulty of the “trip” was positively linked with the increase in well-being. So while most participants had an extremely difficult experience - ranked very high as most difficult psychological experiences in life - they take them as beneficial to their quality of life. The terms used to describe the experiences are “personally meaningful” and “spiritually significant”.

This study only confirms what has been an anecdotal “truth”, but is still a big way forward in understanding and accepting psychedelic drugs. The very word psychedelic describes the findings of this research very well - the word comes from the greek words psychē and dēloun meaning soul-revealing. Something most of us yearn and need.