SPICE Makes You SMARTER?

[vardlokkur]

I support Doodazzle's post that there are many qualitative ways to measure different mental proficiencies/processes. There's not just intelligence and emotion, there's ways of thinking, and ways of feelings; some people are obviously wired for certain ways, or wired to switch between ways, or wired not to. DMT might help someone to perceive in a different way than they normally do, so it may broaded their focus, but that may diminish their focus temporarily, making it difficult to approach a linear and logical probable, but it may allow some abstract processes or non-intuitive (or intuitive, if the rationale is often the standard tool for the mind).

 

[jbark]

THE PRICE OF SPICE WILL BARTER YOU SMARTER
TO ROLL THE DICE TO CHARTER YOU FARTHER.

 

[Global]

My curiosity was a little more along the lines of what Nicita posted about Psylocibin growing more brain cells. You always hear "humans only use 10% of their brains" so I can't help to wonder if the spice helps activate certain parts of the brain that are usually untapped. For instance, does someone wwho uses dmt regularly have the potential to physically make new neuro pathways that someone who never has used it could possibly create without it.

I should think it's somewhat of a given that either new pathways are being used or old pathways are being used in novel formations, or else the experience would be undifferentiated from normal reality. Regardless of whether "it's all in your head" or if you are perceiving something external, we should expect these new neural connections/configurations to be present. If you take your computer for example (or anything visible in consensual reality for that matter), when you perceive your computer - when you see your computer - you have unique neuronal activity for that perception. Therefore it seems reasonable and likely to me that perceiving things that one cannot perceive most of the time would inherently involve new neuron activity.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

THE PRICE OF SPICE WILL BARTER YOU SMARTER
TO ROLL THE DICE TO CHARTER YOU FARTHER.

Please turn off caps lock. Muahahahaha!!!

 

[Sherlockian_Holmes]

. You always hear "humans only use 10% of their brains" so I can't help to wonder if the spice helps activate certain parts of the brain that are usually untapped.
*O*

Myth. Ten percent of the brain myth - Wikipedia

 

[Elpo]

I also thought to have seen the article about psilocybin and neurogenesis.
This is the one I think you guys are referring to:

Low dose psychedelics increase neurogenesis, help mice unlearn fear - Psychedelic Frontier

I like the fact they emphasize set and setting. I'm not really sure what to make of the low/high dose part of the article.

Would the McKenna 5gr dose be considered a high dose?

 

[Infundibulum]

I also thought to have seen the article about psilocybin and neurogenesis.
This is the one I think you guys are referring to:

Low dose psychedelics increase neurogenesis, help mice unlearn fear - Psychedelic Frontier

I like the fact they emphasize set and setting. I'm not really sure what to make of the low/high dose part of the article.

Would the McKenna 5gr dose be considered a high dose?

The effect on hippocampal neurogenesis was observed with 1mg/kg psilocybin doses in mice - a considerably high dose in humans (60-90mg for adult male),. The effect on hippocampal neurogenesis was completely absent in 0.5mg/kg doses, which is closer to what humans consume in a setting.

If one wants to walk the slippery slope of extrapolating results from mice studies to humans, he should be ready to accept the fact that maybe our current mushroom dosages will not provoke much neurogenesis and that maybe we need to go to heroic doses to this effect.

 

[Elpo]

The effect on hippocampal neurogenesis was observed with 1mg/kg psilocybin doses in mice - a considerably high dose in humans (60-90mg for adult male),. The effect on hippocampal neurogenesis was completely absent in 0.5mg/kg doses, which is closer to what humans consume in a setting.

If one wants to walk the slippery slope of extrapolating results from mice studies to humans, he should be ready to accept the fact that maybe our current mushroom dosages will not provoke much neurogenesis and that maybe we need to go to heroic doses to this effect.

My first thought was that it's only about 5gr for an adult person which is a strong dose, but not heroic. I of course didn't think about the fact that 5gr of dried mushrooms do not contain 5gr of psilocybin, but much less.

So yes I can definitely see your point.

Maybe the more important question is how we feel after smoking dmt or taking mushrooms. I can safely say that is has helped me in very subtle ways. Last time I smoked was a few weeks ago and I can say I have felt great afterwards and still do. I am sure the dmt has something to do with it, and I didn't get a breakthrough.

For me that's worth a lot more then getting smarter

 

[edge2054]

Psychedelics have helped me to be more receptive to new information which I imagine has helped me be 'smarter'.

Or maybe I'm just getting older and wiser

 

[Doodazzle]

I have always suspected that making new neural connected can make one smarter--learning new things, doing thing s a different way, being able to maintain multiple reality tunnels and having a larger reality tunnel in general....And that psychedelics can amp you up, get more synapses firing, allow you to connect things in new ways, thus expending the amount of reality one is able to perceive and process.

Global was more succinct:

I should think it's somewhat of a given that either new pathways are being used or old pathways are being used in novel formations

IMO It is also possible to make stupid connections, and get dumber, because of a trip. Delusional thinking, for example. Purposefully entering a novel paradigm and then letting it go later may be expanding in itself....so I can't even knock 'delusional thinking' entirely. But during a trip one may become utterly convinced of some nonsense, fall into the grip of the fear, and then become trapped in a more constricted reality tunnel or belief system=dumber.

I do not believe that we have any way to really measure nor quantify intelligence. But yeah, spice can make some of us smarter, sometimes, so it would seem.

This neurogenesis tip is interesting, but inconclusive. Kinda adds weight to the big fat maybe.

 

[*oneironaut*]

. You always hear "humans only use 10% of their brains" so I can't help to wonder if the spice helps activate certain parts of the brain that are usually untapped.
*O*

Myth. Ten percent of the brain myth - Wikipedia

Thank god, all this time I thought I was hauling an extra load of gray mush around for no reason! thanks for the link.