Microdosing for neuroplasticity?

[theloopis]

Hi fellow earthlings,
Through out my life since I was 3 I've had a moderate stutter. Chronic stuttering is often misunderstood so let me explain in short. You know exactly what you want to say but you can't get the sound out because your vocal cords are locked shut. Most stutters deal with these locked up cords by trying to push through the sound hence where the actual repetitions come in.

Over the past couple of months I've been really focusing on self acceptance and tackling the social anxiety stuttering has brought upon me which has been life changing. Although I'm not stutter free, I now consider myself a mild stutter in 99% of situations. Although I'm more fluent, my fears and habits of how I used to act still occupy my mind from time to time.

I almost have 2 cakes of Psilocybe cubensis grown and am planning to microdose, go out in public and talk to strangers. Aside from a self insightful nature I'll have into myself while I'm speaking with another, I hope that psilocybe's extraordinary neuroplasticity (claimed through overwhelming suggestive evidence) will help rewire and desensitize my stress reactions.

Do any of you have experience with micro-dosing and can suggest a dose?
Is there any other medicine that has supposedly stronger neuroplasticity or and healing effects on psychosomatic disorders?

Any other tips/comments/suggestions/experiences are very much welcome.


Infinite bliss

 

[Benjamin_James]

Such a fascinating idea.. I've always experienced a strong connection between psilocybin and linguistic functions, so I'm eager to hear what comes of your experiments! Any specific references to information about the connection between mushrooms and neuroplasticity? I would love to read up on the subject.

regards

 

[universecannon]

There is actually a documentary or something which at one point showed how a man with a horrible stutter problem could talk completely stutter-free just seconds after inhaling marijuana. I think he had more than just a stutter though and i can't remember the details, and no dobut many who stutter aren't helped by marijuana. But i think it is just further evidence that this sort of thing has potential in this area.

I wouldn't be surprised if microdosing mushrooms help you but it may also depend on set/setting. And i think a low dose that is noticeable will be more likely to immediately help you than a dose which is so small that its hardly perceptible if at all. It might even take a higher dose to really help shift things, who knows.

I would just be careful, take your time experimenting, and learn to meditate/do yoga if you can. This on its own might aid you some and it definitely will help you navigate your experiences in a calm way should you choose to take an active dose of mushrooms.

Btw have you ever done a psychedelic/marijuana at all? What were your past experiences like?

 

[theloopis]

Terence McKenna speaks a great depth about psilocybin and its connection to linguistic function!
Here is a good read on neuroplasticity.

Psychedelic Neuroplasticity

A case for psychedelics as facilitators of long term identity modification and neuroplasticity.

psychedelic-information-theory.com

Most of the time my stuttering is neutral to Marijuana. But it does give me a fresh wicked perspective of my own speech. It makes it 1000x more mysterious when I'm in that headspace of wonder.

Universecannon- I've been meditating for over a year here and there but have just got back into daily routines of it

I've done mushrooms (pan cyans) and a very low dose of DMT (mixed with mj, which I wish I didn't mix).

My first and only thus far mushroom experience was wonderful. My head had never felt so clear in my damn life. I can't stress the "clearness" enough, this was no chemical delusion. I didn't have much speaking opportunity to test it out but from when I did speak my troubles where virtually Non Existent. A huge theme towards the end of my trip was "You have all the time in the world to say what you want" This sentence literally popped into my head out of the blue and hit me hard in such a susceptible emotional state:shock:

Psilocybin's effect on OCD and Turrets are being studied right now at the John Hopkins University. The results through even a one time dosage are beyond awe. WIth some of the patients their compulsions have been completely eradicated! For others majorly decreased. Notably enough, OCD, Turrets, and stuttering stem from the same gene mutation in recent studies. Psychologically speaking, OCD, Turrets, and stuttering are eerily similar in many ways.

 

[MagicGing]

There is actually a documentary or something which at one point showed how a man with a horrible stutter problem could talk completely stutter-free just seconds after inhaling marijuana. I think he had more than just a stutter though and i can't remember the details, and no dobut many who stutter aren't helped by marijuana. But i think it is just further evidence that this sort of thing has potential in this area.

i think your talking about the sanjay gupta documentary on weed.
the kid has like insane diaphram spasms and cant talk effectivly, but like 3 seconds after a hit, there gone.

 

[armbarsalot]

Been considering this myself. i think someone suggested combining another mushroom, Lions Mane that has some very interesting cognitive properties also.

 

[Benjamin_James]

Terence McKenna speaks a great depth about psilocybin and its connection to linguistic function!
Here is a good read on neuroplasticity.
Psychedelic Neuroplasticity

That blew my mind! Thanks loopis. Dude if you have any more resources on the subject, please share.. I'm very interested in doing my master's thesis on the communicative and linguistic properties of altered states of consciousness, so I try to glean knowledge wherever I can.

As far as the relationship between Cannabis and linguistic function- I am about halfway through David Jay Brown's "Psychedelic Research: A Comprehensive Review" and he references a study done at the London College which tested subjects on what the researchers call "semantic priming", which is basically a form of word association. What they found was that Cannabis "intoxication" caused subjects to react much more quickly to related words! Or as Erik Davis says in his book "Nomad Codes", "When smoking Marijuana, my brain became a high speed connection machine".

I think its fascinating the way you explain how you received the message about having all the time you need to say whatever you need to say... I know that profound feeling of having a thought hit you all at once, as opposed to the ordinary, "streaming in" format of information. Cool stuff.

 

[thebreadinspector]

You should try LSD and Cannabis they helped with my slight linguistic stutter.

 

[theloopis]

I'm scared of getting LSD from anyone due to the fair probability of it being something else:x

armbarsalot- back when I lived in colorado for a bit I had the opportunity to ingest pure,fresh, yummy, live culture, Lions Maine that was blendered into a juice At the time I was taking lions maine I started chatting up strangers on purpose for the first time in my life and my speech has rapidly improved since then. Wish I isolated my actions from Lion's Maine to see which one it was but hey maybe it was the combination of both Also my overall cognition did seem better, wish I would have continued taking it. In fact I decided I'm gana start growing some of that myself right now. My uncle who also partook in this Lions Maine was off his coffee addiction as it was much more stimulating for him. Interestingly enough after a week of lions maine he started to get a lot of emotions come up of his past and eventually decided to stop as it was getting too intense.
Lions maine almost felt faintly psychedelic for me.

Benjamin James- communicative and linguistic properties of altered states of consciousness SOUNDS BEYOND AWESOME!!! I have a handful of sources for you and sure will come across more as I'm specifically interested in this faucet as well. Message me!
I could definitely see how remote associations tests improve drastically in such a state. I wonder how the scores would compare to people on different psychedelics.
Time yourself sober, and next time your dancin with ganja (or anyone else), here is a good test site for that:

Collection of RAT items | What word relates to all three? | Remote Associates Test of Creativity

Find a fourth word that is related to all three of the given words. Hundreds of problems from the Mednick's Remote Associates Test (RAT) of creativity. Difficulty level and correct answer to each task.

www.remote-associates-test.com

I'm glad you can sympathize James, it really was a profound thought-wave that collided into every atom of my body:surprised

 

[adam]

There is actually a documentary or something which at one point showed how a man with a horrible stutter problem could talk completely stutter-free just seconds after inhaling marijuana. I think he had more than just a stutter though and i can't remember the details, and no dobut many who stutter aren't helped by marijuana. But i think it is just further evidence that this sort of thing has potential in this area.

I wouldn't be surprised if microdosing mushrooms help you but it may also depend on set/setting. And i think a low dose that is noticeable will be more likely to immediately help you than a dose which is so small that its hardly perceptible if at all. It might even take a higher dose to really help shift things, who knows.

I would just be careful, take your time experimenting, and learn to meditate/do yoga if you can. This on its own might aid you some and it definitely will help you navigate your experiences in a calm way should you choose to take an active dose of mushrooms.

Btw have you ever done a psychedelic/marijuana at all? What were your past experiences like?

There is also a documentary of a women who has cerebral palsy who has a terrible stutter and horribly painful muscle spasticity who smokes a bowl and then proceeds to speak clearly and loosen her muscles.

Also my brother has cerebral palsy and gets rick simpson oil and slowly his muscles are becoming looser and his behavior more level headed, so I think this is good eveidence for neuroplasticity.

And I know of someone who has mild CP who eats mushrooms and it relieves all his symptoms for weeks at a time.

If I had more supply I would microdose myself. Although I do vape dmt about once a week, so I dont know if that counts.

Mushrooms have tolerance so you might want to wait every 2-3 days while performing this.

 

[theloopis]

I'm sorry to hear about your brother Adam but so happy to hear his getting better with simpson oil. That stuff seems to be helping an overwhelming amount of people and would even more if such knowledge wasn't automatically ignored by the masses. Mushrooms also have their fair share in cluster headache...eradicating it for a few months off a single dose-more effective then any daily pharma pill of course. Interestingly, from other reports it seems that the psilocybin tolerance heavily depends on the amount you take, not the number of times per sitting.

 

[RadioActiveLamb]

Love, love, love this post! I really hope you update this thread with the results. Microdosing is great for mood, attitude, and general happiness...wishing you all the good luck in the world! :d

 

[Warrior]

I have to share my personal sentiment about this. I was born with a stutter, and was lucky enough to get 2 years of speech therapy during pre-K as a child.

I don't stutter anymore. In fact, I've compensated a bit and am a very good speaker when I need to be. Only, I still stumble on my *thoughts*. Yes, my thoughts stick. I pause, maybe say 'um', and continue. It turns out, after careful reflection during Ayahuasca ceremonies, it is something deeper in my brain that gets stuck. Therapy fixed the topical problem, but something deeper still remains. In fact, I have come to believe I have some kind of weird working memory deficit perhaps, or some other kink in the algorithm of fluid thought.

When I'm down and feeling like crap about life I develop some OCD rituals that make it so I have the hardest time leaving the house in under 2-4 hours of time after waking. After a severe depression in 2011, it took me over a year to get out of the house on a regular basis. I was all alone, in my studio apartment. I had no family, and very few friends around me at that time. The stutter had come back as a sticking point in another part of my behavioral life!

I literally couldn't leave the house, and I'd never 'noticed' OCD-like behaviors in myself before. I've never been a hand washing type, or a counter, or the other stereotypical things this category of mental illness does routinely, ritually. I never did any of the rituals. But it certainly got weird when I was severely depressed and I found I couldn't leave the house unless I 'finished' all these worthless little things unnecessary for my day ahead. It was a very extreme situation I found myself in. I can only be grateful now that psychedelics have come back into my life after a decade of no weed, no alcohol, no drugs of any kind (besides alprazolam, which I *loath* for the shadow side it has). What a stupid idea it was for me to give up cannabis and psychadelics for a xanax prescription that made me feel like a junky, and added cumulative psychological load to my life! My god, that was COMPLETELY the wrong direction to go. 20/20 hindsight....

Ayahuasca is teaching me how to be fluid. I don't know if I'll ever fully get past whatever my physical impediment is, but when my brain shuts up and my soul shines through, there isn't any problem with fluidity at all. That's partly why I've been doing microdosing myself lately. I have to record a lot of audio, (and some video) at the current moment. The intended audience is very large, and if I don't find a way to make myself a universal pitch to the public, then all is a futile waste of time. Psychedelics are the ONLY thing that work this well for me. Alcohol makes me less inhibited, but that's not the same thing. That's something completely different. Cannabis helps, but it also makes me forgetful, which from a therapeutic perspective simply gums things up differently as well. Microdosing psychedelics is something truly profound, bordering on magical or divine. Beyond words.

By the way, Ayahuasca has taught me that whatever my problem is, it is now my language that is my anchor to reality and navigation through my memories. I essentially cannot think if I stop using words. I can clear my mind in meditation, but words creep back in. I tried something abstract as a teenager after taking LSD, and tried to go a full week without using words at all... That was a major mistake. I ended up being bordering-on catatonic for a month after (maybe more like 6 weeks). :/

Sometimes I hate the fact that my mind never seems to shut up, but at the same time, my linguistic talents have carried me very, very far in life. Why hate on that? Just accept it, go with it, accept it as you. I try not to care about whether I sound like I'm fluid, or coming off like a wooden actor from an old John Wayne movie. The real me is a balance between my soul's message & my brain's ability to vocalize it, (and consolidate it as declarative memory). People that know me in the flesh know me as a living, walking polymath of topics, able to talk circles around academics within their own fields, (when I'm feeling up to it). I'm partly good at talking experts in circles because I am very, very good at asking critical questions and waiting for them to stumble on their own ideas. Questions are the bait, and the trap I've been catching people in all my life is something NO ONE sees coming. I've gotten a lot of "who WAS that guy?" type of responses in my time. The people that ask that have always been very confused. They have no idea where the heck I came from, nor where I disappear to after all is said and done. But I'm beginning to use my strengths in different, more productive ways now. Things are getting better all the time.

I just haven't done jack with the soul half of my 'self' yet in life... That's where I'm playing a little catch up right now. I'm bonding with my true self, and learning not to be afraid of who I am. That stuttering kid within me is long gone, and the childlike soul in me is starting to grow again. The rest are just details.

 

[theloopis]

That literally gave me shivers reading. I really see a lot of myself in what you just said.
"it is something deeper in my brain that gets stuck." yes yes yes.

" The real me is a balance between my soul's message & my brain's ability to vocalize it"
Beautifully said, there is a zone that I can get into sometimes where my stuttering is gone, and whenever I'm in that zone I feel like my true self, so hard to explain without sounding too cheesy but it's really profound.

You will get past your "physical impediment" I never thought I would say this to anyone including myself. But mind over matter. It can't hurt to think so

Thanks a ton man for sharing every one of those details, I appreciate your story and you as a person.
I would love to chat with you in detail as I have a few specific questions, can you PM me? I can't seem too since I'm a still a new member of this group!

infinite bliss my friend

 

[Warrior]

PM sent. If you can't read it yet you're welcome to ask me whatever here. I've been posting pretty openly about myself on this forum lately, and I don't have any philosophical problem with that at this time.