Posts Tagged ‘agreeableness’
Single dose of magic mushroom ‘can change personality’ for the better?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 18, 2013
Single magic mushroom ‘can change personality’ for the better?
A single dose of the chemical psilocybin (contained in a single magic hallucinogenic mushroom) may induce a person to witness mystical experience, after which this attitude of “openness” scores rises, and remains higher for up to a year after the tests.
What’s that openness attribute?
Experimental psychologists define Openness as associated with imagination, artistic appreciation, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness.
One trait among the major 5 traits, such as extrovert, neurotics, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
What’s more, None of the other 4 traits was altered during the year.
All that from a single dose.
Question: What if a person is injected with 2 doses or more? Kind of inadvertently?
Matt Blake posted in The Independence on 30 September 2011:
Forty-five years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to “turn on, tune in and drop out”, researchers have found that magic mushrooms do change a user’s personality – for the better.
The fungi have long been known for their psychedelic effects, but far from damaging the brain, the hallucinogenic drug they contain enhances feelings and aesthetic sensibilities, scientists say.
The study, at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, was enough to cause positive effects for up to a year.
“Psilocybin can facilitate experiences that change how people perceive themselves and their environment. That’s unprecedented.” said Roland Griffiths, a study author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Johns Hopkins.
Users who had a “mystical experience” while taking the drug showed increases in a personality trait dubbed “openness”, one of the 5 major traits used in psychology to describe human personality.
Openness is associated with imagination, artistic appreciation, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness.
None of the other 4 traits – extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness – was altered.
Under controlled scientific conditions, researchers gave 51 adults either psilocybin or a placebo in up to five 80-hour sessions. They were told to lie on a sofa with their eyes covered and listen to music while focusing on an “inner experience”.
Their personalities were screened after each drug session and also about a year later.
Of the 51 subjects, 30 had a mystical experience, after which their openness scores rose, and remained higher for up to a year after the tests.
The 21 who did not have a mystical experience showed no change.
Questions:
1. Can I deduce that the advent of a mystical experience expands the awareness of individuals to recognize differences and interactions in the environment?
2. Would more than a single dose affect negatively anyone of the 5 traits?
3. Would two doses extend the effects longer than one year?
4. If a person is prone to experience magical feeling, would hallucinogenic ingredients deteriorate his performance?
5. How addictive is magic mushroom?
6. If I add half the dose in a cigarette, what do you think might happen? Would addiction be switched from nicotine to psilocybin?
Adonis Diaries 