More than one in 10 people who undergo modern psychedelic mushroom therapy, endorsed by celebrities such as Prince Harry, experience “significant psychological distress”, data published today suggests.
Experts in the United States, who tracked the self-reported behaviors of nearly 10,000 psilocybin users, discovered hundreds of reports of paranoia, intense fear and even vivid hallucinations.
One claimed to have experienced “feelings of death, impending doom, torture” with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms used in therapy, adding that it felt like “being thrown into hell.”
Another warned that “they saw demons, skeletons, slugs, cockroaches, ghosts… me disappointing my parents.”
Experts today acknowledged that the findings were merely observational, but warned that they “deserve serious consideration and should not be overlooked.”
Experts in the United States, who tracked the self-reported behaviors of nearly 10,000 psilocybin users, discovered hundreds of reports of paranoia, intense fear and even vivid hallucinations. One claimed to have experienced “feelings of death, impending doom, torture” with the psychedelic, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, adding that it felt like “being thrown into hell.”
Last year, Prince Harry also admitted to using psilocybin and ayahuasca, a psychedelic plant obtained from the leaves of a shrub.
He said he took the medications in an attempt to help him heal the “pain” and “trauma” he felt after his mother’s death. In the photo, Harry with Princess Diana in 1987.
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms, ketamine and ecstasy (or MDMA) have long been touted by some British psychiatrists as a respectable new therapeutic answer for mental illnesses such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD) and substance abuse or addiction. .
Psilocybin itself has been touted as a promising therapy for depression and for alleviating social anxiety in people with autism.
Last year, Prince Harry also admitted to using it along with ayahuasca, a psychedelic plant obtained from the leaves of a shrub, in an attempt to help him heal the “pain” and “trauma” he felt after the death of his mother.
When someone takes magic mushrooms, psilocybin is converted in the body to psilocin, which binds to serotonin receptors in the brain to create a hallucinatory effect.
Psilocin can also cause excess activity in the brain’s frontal cortex, which is the region responsible for assisting with the performance of motor tasks as well as high-level cognitive function such as judgment, abstract thinking, and creativity. .
This overactive frontal cortex causes changes in consciousness, altered perceptions, and changes in thought patterns.
The researchers, of Health Newstracked the experiences of users of Shroomery, a popular Reddit-like online forum where people share tips and their own psychedelic trip behaviors.
They then ran them through the AI chatbot ChatGPT to analyze the language used.
“Sentiment analysis classifies reports according to emotional tone into positive, negative or neutral,” the experts stated.
No other details were shared about how the investigation was conducted.
The experts found that almost half (42.4 percent) of the reports were positive and 13.57 percent were negative.
Common negative keywords used to describe experiences include anxiety (1,260), fear (1,000), panic (980), nausea (690), and paranoia (260).
An anonymous user claimed that he was forced to “turn off all the lights” after taking psilocybin.
‘Every minute that passed on the trip he grew stronger. I couldn’t stand it. “I couldn’t stand to look at anything, so I locked my room, turned off all the lights and lay in bed, coming out only to occasionally vomit outside,” they said.
Another reported existential fear that questioned his reality and existence.
‘My mind couldn’t identify with anything. All social life seemed foreign to me. (…) I felt like I had gone crazy and that I would have to go to a psychiatric hospital. I cannot define this state. It was as if nothing mattered,’ they wrote.
Common triggers for “bad trips” included high doses, pre-existing mental health problems such as anxiety or depression, and a lack of preparation before taking the medication, experts said.
The findings add to a growing body of research sounding the alarm about psilocybin’s worrying side effects.
A 2023 study in the journal Plus one compiled records of more than 600 people’s experiences following the use of psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, cannabis, MDMA, DMT, ketamine, mescaline, and sage.
Common triggers for “bad trips” included high doses, pre-existing mental health problems such as anxiety or depression, and a lack of preparation before taking the medication, experts said. The findings add to a growing body of research sounding the alarm about psilocybin’s worrying side effects.
Recalling his experiences, one anonymous user, interviewed by British researchers, said: ‘I stayed awake for three days after the dose and went into psychosis.
‘I thought all my friends were ‘spies’ who talked to me to make fun of me. I was also throwing things at the wall and talking about wanting to kill myself on the third day. This belief persisted until I was taking an antipsychotic for months.
However, supporters of psychedelic therapy argue that bad trips are rare, and even when they occur, they often provide challenging personal insights that fuel healthy psychological growth.
Proponents also point to the presence of a therapist in trials, for the entire time the patient is under the influence of hallucinatory drugs.
In February 2022, David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, co-authored a review of research in the Psychopharmacology Journal.
He stated that psychedelic drugs have an unjustified bad reputation and argued that “many (although not all) persistent negative perceptions of psychological risks are not supported by currently available scientific evidence.”
Professor Nutt was sacked as chair of the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in 2009 by Labor Home Secretary Alan Johnson after producing a document for the Home Office which claimed that class A ecstasy is safer than equestrian sports.
It also recommended that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD be considered less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes.
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