I wasn't sure where this went, but it seems relevant to what we think about here on The Nexus.

http://www.thedailybeast...6-9-billion-a-year.html

I was shocked when I read this article -- the highest grossing drug in America today (clocking it at $6.9 billion) is an antipsychotic: aripiprazole (Abilify). More people are taking Ability than any other prescription medication, including the old gold-standards Zoloft and Prozac. It's mostly being prescribed for depression.

The reason I think this is relevant to The Nexus is that atypical antipsychotics really function as inverse-psychedelics. They turn off the receptors that psychedelics turn on, leading to a state that can be thought of as anti-tripping. LSD, psilocybin, mescaline all act as agonists of the 5-HT2AR, and the hallmark of all these atypicical antipsychotics is their antagonism of that same receptor.

What does it say about the world that our front-line antidepressant treatment is about as pharmacologically far from psychedelics as it's possible to get? Other big sellers are quetiapine (Seroquel) and risperdone (Risperdal), both of which are even 'truer' inverse psychedelics.

Blessings
~ND

Them doktors as always are messing folks up. Thanks for the link. This is a big pet issue of mine.





"Further up and Further In"
ASlan

Instead of going deeper into life, meaning, problems, thinking, etc. many want to hide, pull back from it. Previously unimaginable amounts of stress, work, and stimulation only contribute to this problem.

For a break from stimulation, an isolation tank would do many people very, very well. Or some kind of meditation. But even as I type this, I'm overstressed and I don't meditate anymore. I'm taking codeine so I can sleep at night (I couldn't because of stress and a harsh cough).

And I know what I should be doing!! Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, etc. Imagine people who have no clue about these things, prescription drugs may seem like the only option.

It's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

This is not a popular opinion but it is truly mine. Codiene and being opiate dependant is a Bitch but it's my bitch my life. The opiates are SO much better than these psych prescribed pills. There is an element even in the most decripit Junky of renoucing modern society and all the CRAP that stresses most folks out. Be careful I don't want you to feel the pain of addiction however there is a meditative quality to the opiates. Hopefully I can get beyond it and get back into a more spiritual method of meditation.

The thing about the psych meds is that they do permanent damage. In the joint we call these pills "Ding medication" The end result is a person who uses them will be wearing a paper hat asking customers if they want to biggie size their combo meal and think that is what life is ALL about. When someone I love and respect starts taking those pills I have to write them off and step away.

Thanks again for the article.

"Further up and further In"
Aslan

May I ask what caused you to stop practicing meditation? I've found sometimes that in stressful times in my life, meditation only adds to the stress instead of relieving it. Just wondering if I'm alone in this or maybe it's similar to what you've experienced.

Honestly it's a combination of laziness, a lack of time, and psychedelics + an iso tank experience that took away from the actual experience of meditating. I tell this story often, but I once went in an isolation tank on about 600 mg of synthetic mescaline, and it was the deepest I have ever gone. It was what I was always searching for from meditation but never got because of physical distractions.

Also the mind-states I could reach with psychedelics outdid anything I could get with normal meditation, so it just lost it's attractiveness. I sometimes still lie in bed and try to enter sleep paralysis, which is similar to meditation for me, but I generally end up falling asleep.

I can't get to sleep now because I lie down and I just can't stop thinking. Also I have an extraordinary attention span, so this can go on for hours. So I may understand what you mean when you say it adds to the stress, as closing my eyes and trying to clear my mind just forces me to think about everything I have to do, my problems, and how I am meditating trying to reduce the stress.

Interesting read, thanks for the reply.

Personally, I have a diagnosis of OCD and ADHD so my brain is always all over the place. I explained my mind to one of my friends as simultaneously listening to 45 different record players, all playing a different record, with the needle dropping at a random point in the record. I'm extremely mentally hyperactive, which manifests itself in physical symptoms. My cousin, who is into meditation, practices daily, is part of a group, etc., is trying to get me back into it, but I explained to him that physical exercises is so much more cathartic for someone like me, because I need to burn off massive amounts of energy for my mind to get to a state of normalcy.

It's funny that you mention psychedelics as well, as I've had very different experiences. After a mushroom experience, when I'm kind of in that "I need to get my life together" mode, I always feel inspired to meditate, and do so for a few days/weeks, until I realize why I stopped in the first place. During periods where I daily smoke Cannabis, I feel no need to meditate, because being in a mentally and physically serene state is the goal of meditation, and I feel that I've achieved it in another way (although maybe not the "right" way). One thing I've noticed about Cannabis is that it lets me enjoy doing essentially nothing. When I'm sober, I need constant stimulation (another reason meditation is so hard for me), but with Cannabis, I can literally just sit at a window and look outside for an hour. It may seem "odd" to someone observing me, but I find doing understimulating activities is very relaxing.

If I wanted to shave my head, get rid of all my material possessions, move to Nepal, and become a Buddhist monk, I'd have no problem with meditation every day and I'm sure I'd get "where I want to be" (wherever that is), but as long as I'm a modern, civilized person, in modern, civilized society, with the problems that modern, civilized people face, I can't just "think" myself out of a negative state of mind, and in this way, I feel that meditation is detrimental to me now because it just sort of reminds me that I have very little control. At least at this point in my life.

Here's a quick summary of the book, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane:

https://www.goodreads.co...ok/show/1923151.Shyness


"The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda."

-Martin Buber


I'm sorry for your disability, Akasha. Life is a struggle, but even if Heaven is what awaits us in death, there's humility in seeing the Good in life on Earth, and humility is a great and powerful thing.

Personally I think its beacause most people dont want to spend time or money on discussing and thinking what may be the root causes; people want a quick fix. Also the strong influence pharmaceutical companies have on the health services.
This however may be a reason for the choice of medication and not the reason why mental ill health is on the rise. As a side note there was a study where CBD was deemed as effective as amisulpride www.nature.com/tp/journa...2/n3/full/tp201215a.html

I wrote in another thread recently I believe its about the structure of our societies, media influence, competition culture and ever an increasing population intensifying competition and putting more pressure on resources. I suppose iin short many are living lives that go against their individual nature. There are of course cases where anti-depressant medication is effective for people that just want to get on with things and for some people its essential treatment.

...perhaps there are also those, who'd have wet dreams of importing Andrei Snezhnevsky's concept of slow progressive schizophrenia, a fabrication to knock out dissidents of all sorts, or simply anyone really....(aka punitive psychiatry)