Jockey Jim
The story of the last great African American jockey, Jim Winkfield. What a story and I play his Rusdian Baroness wife. It a great play, come if you are able and watch mode speak in a Russuan accent 😊 
Recolor 😊
I colored these on an app called recolor. I think I have fallen in love with coloring all over again. At first it seemed tedious, but by the time I was done with the 2nd one I did, the flower bouquet in a vase, I was amazed and very happy with myself and the beautiful thing I’d created. It’s really fun! I’m planning on doing lots more. 
Don’t Let Foot Cramps and Charley Horses Slow You Down
Sort of a banal post, but probably helpful as well. These cramps in my feet happen to me all the time as a result of being on Lithium. Lithium dehydrates you and if you don’t rehydrate enough, you can get muscle cramps. Also lithium changes your electrolyte balance and that can also cause muscle cramps. I try, always, to drink a lot of fluids, sometimes, I don’t hydrate enough and I get cramps. I saw this article and thought i am surely not the only one that that happens to, so I’m posting it. Pretty informational 🙂
You’re sound asleep, and then, without warning, you wake up with a paralyzing stiffness in your calf or foot.
Whether you call it a foot or leg cramp (aka “charley horse”), it’s a common, somewhat mysterious pain that happens when a muscle gets involuntarily stiff and can’t relax.
“They tend to happen more frequently as we age,” says sports and exercise medicine physician Kim Gladden, MD. “While they can be uncomfortable, they are rarely harmful.”
Here’s what causes these cramps, as well as tips to help prevent them.
7 common causes for cramps
Whether day or night, your foot and calf muscles can spasm or cramp. This can happen to various muscles — not just in the legs or feet — though these cramps are often most uncomfortable.
Causes for muscle cramps include:
- Lack of hydration.“If you are experiencing cramping, it’s important to look at your hydration first,” Dr. Gladden says. You want to make sure you are drinking enough water throughout the day.
- Problems with nutrition. While a balance of electrolytes (calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium) is essential for the contraction and relaxation of a muscle, it’s best not to simply self-treat with supplements. “Taking excess supplements if you don’t need them can be harmful,” Dr. Gladden says. Instead, she suggests eating a variety of foods with plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables. This includes leafy greens and fruits, including bananas, to add a balance of electrolytes to you diet.
- Side effect of medication. Some medications such as statins and furosemide (Lasix®) can also cause muscle cramps. A tip-off is when cramps start suddenly after you begin taking a new medication. If this happens, see your practitioner.
- Not stretching enough. Taking time to stretch each day, including after a brief warm up or after a shower can help. “You want your muscles to be as strong and supple as they can be. Adequate stretching after a brief warm-up period is key to this,” Dr. Gladden says.
- Overexertion. If you exercise harder than usual or experience muscle fatigue, this can cause cramps. Pace yourself.
- Poor circulation. If you have cramping that increases when you walk, it could be a problem with your circulation. “Some circulation problems cause pain that feels like cramping. If it gets worse when you walk, or if you have cramps that just don’t stop, definitely see your doctor,” Dr. Gladden says.
- The wrong shoes. A less-known cause for muscle cramping: your shoes. “You want to look at your shoes, especially if you changed from flats to heels. This also can cause cramps,” Dr. Gladden says.
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How to stop leg and foot cramps
There are some simple ways to respond to leg and foot cramps:
- If it happens while you are lying down or in bed, try to simply stand up and put some weight on the affected leg or foot. This can sometimes be enough to stop that tender stiffness.
- Use warmth/heating pads to increase blood circulation to the muscle and to relax it. Soaking in a warm tub of Epsom salt can also help ease the tension.
- For more stubborn pain, you can try a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, such as ibuprofen.
Easy stretches to keep calves and feet happy
Here are some simple stretches that can help stop pain and prevent it.
Basic calf stretch
This calf stretch is commonly used by runners. Here’s how to do it:
- Stand with your palms placed against a wall, with arms stretched out
- Step back with leg of affected calf
- Lean forward on the other leg and push against the wall
You should feel a stretch in your calf muscle and the back of the leg.
Towel stretch
Do this stretch while you sit:
- Keep legs outstretched in front of you
- Point the toes of your affected foot at the ceiling so that the leg is engaged
- Take a towel or neck tie and wrap it around your foot, holding it with both hands
- Lift the leg slightly until you feel a good stretch
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Keep cramps from happening again
Here are some tips to prevent leg cramps:
- Stay well hydrated
- Stretch each day, especially before you exercise
- Limit or avoid alcohol
- Eat a balanced diet that includes natural sources of calcium, potassium and magnesium
- Increase your activity level gradually
If leg or foot cramps are occasional occurrences, you can generally manage them yourself. However, if they happen frequently, are severe, or if you are concerned any of your medications are the culprit, talk to your doctor. They could signal a medical problem that requires treatment.
A Spotless Mind: Good or Bad?
Would you erase traumatic and bad memories, phobias, panic attacks and disorders such as PTSD if you could? Well now with Propranolol you can!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minding-memory/201603/spotless-mind-good-or-bad?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPostAntonio Guillem/Shutterstock
Source: Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to delete a painful memory—just obliterate it?
Maybe you saw the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (link is external)(2004), one of the wackier products of writer Charlie Kaufman’s imagination. Its premise was that people could erase selective memories to eliminate the distress they incur.
I loved the film. I found it funny, absurd, and profoundly moving. What its protagonists (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) perceive is that not only do they cling to their most difficult memories but they also tend to repeat their past mistakes, even as they forget the life lessons they believe to have learned from them. It’s like Groundhog Day (link is external)(1993) with a realistic twist.
But guess what? Scientists have discovered a drug that can potentially efface memories of profoundly painful, even traumatic events. As Richard A. Friedman wrote in the New York Times: “Who among us hasn’t wanted to let go of anxiety or forget about fear? Phobias, panic attacks and disorders like post-traumatic stress are extremely common: 29 percent of American adults will suffer from anxiety at some point in their lives.”
Well, there may be a cure for that. And its name is propranolol.
Studies show that if someone who has a phobia—let’s say spiders—takes this drug at the moment they are exposed to that fear, it vanishes. Friedman (link is external)explains the process:
“Propranolol blocks the effects of norepinephrine in the brain. This chemical, which is similar to adrenaline, enhances learning, so blocking it disrupts the way a memory is put back in storage after it is retrieved—a process called reconsolidation.”
Things get a lot trickier in Spotless Mind, in which both protagonists undergo an all-night brain treatment to erase the memory of their failed relationship. The problem is that the treatment works. Both come to regret their decision to erase the memories of each other and scramble to recover them. Despite the painfulness of their parting, neither wants to let go of the bittersweet memory of their intimate involvement. Call it love.
Fear of spiders seems relatively minor in relation to human heartbreak. But think also about the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder in recent years—not only among veterans returning from war but also among those (many of them women) who have suffered sexual and/or domestic abuse on the homefront.
We are hyper-sensitized to stories of trauma and their disabling effects. We hear that survivors are subject to recurring nightmares, panic attacks resulting from “triggers,” social isolation, depression and suicidal impulses.
I do not doubt any of these findings. Rather, I think that these stories may help to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the complex (and barely understood) processes of memory.
Contemporary neuroscience tells us that every time we retrieve and relive a personal memory, we revise it in terms of the context of its retrieval. Say you hear a song that reminds you of a moment of special significance in your past. The instant in which you recall this memory intermingles with the circumstance that evoked it. As a result, the reminiscence that will now be re-stored in your long-term memory will bear traces of what is happening here and now. The present, as a result, continues to revise the past. This is not a matter of personal choice or self-determination. It’s a brain function that happens regardless of what we consciously wish or desire.
I wonder if the success of exposure therapy (an offshoot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) may work in part like this. I’ve never tried this technique. But I can imagine how reliving a traumatic experience (such as a rape) in a controlled environment, where you can summon a response other than helplessness and terror, might help form new associations about what happened. It may mute the primary memory’s traumatic effects. I can also see how this therapy might not be enough. Friedman reports that it works in only about half of the PTSD patients who try it. Some may even experience the re-living of the past as an excruciating replay of the original trauma.
I’m torn about these new findings. Would I want to erase the most painful memories of my past—nearly all of which have to do with close relationships? Like the lovers in Spotless Mind, the memories that most torment me concern the major emotional losses of my life. Would I want to erase these?
I do not mind the prospect of taking a federally-approved drug to enhance my health, longevity, or emotional well-being (e.g., high blood pressure, migraine, anxiety or depression). But I don’t like the idea of losing my personal memory, as one does because of Alzheimers or dementia. For me, the most difficult memories are also the ones that have propelled me into the future. Experiencing disappointment or failure, even in personal relationships, has caused me to develop a more complex understanding of myself and others. It has allowed me to discover greater inner resources.
For example: When I once lost a job, I got so mad that I demanded to meet with the president of the college. This didn’t save my job, but it did teach me to be more assertive. I treasure this memory as much as I value the ones that revealed to me how I “messed up” with spouses, lovers, and friends. How else would I learn what matters?
I don’t seek the solace of a spotless mind—that is to say, one in which I may forget the most challenging, but also most life-changing, events of my life.
What about you? Would you take such a drug? For what reasons?
Some More of Herstory
Sort of tired of talking about the past, and reading about how to resolve it, and thinking about it, and even talking about it sometimes. I need to come back to the present, plant my feet firmly in the soil of now. But maybe one last foray into my history or maybe I should call it herstory.
My brother Me, 16 My grandmother’s home
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My grandfather My son and I My mother
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My father Me , about 1 Me, 17
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My husband and me
This might be a funny thing to say but I married my mother… my husband has many of the characteristics that my mother had, perfectionism, OCD, not very complimentary, not showing love very well outwardly, but dependable to the millionth degree, and physically present and to be relied upon everyday of my life. I may have chosen my husband because subconsciously he reminded me of my mother, (and no abuse of any kind from my husband!) And even though I knew she had abused me, I also knew she had never abandoned me, so I knew I could rely on her to take care of me, when she wasn’t pummeling me that is… haha… and that stopped when I was 14. So I chose someone who reminded me of my mother, personality wise, because I knew I wouldn’t be abandoned. Hmmm, pretty smart of my psyche.
I did not choose someone like my father. My father was incredibly handsome, incredibly! He had these beautiful mesmerizing, light colored eyes. He was very intelligent and charming, and talked about anything and everything! But a good father he was not. He did not know how to relate to people of the female gender in any other way than flirting. And this included me. I remember him being flirtatious, and also mean.(He had affairs, came home drunk and did not have a job, my mother supported all of us with her salary as an OB/GYN resident. He was at least verbally abusive to my mother and physically abused me on occasion.) Once when I was about 5 years old, I’d swallowed an orange seed. He started telling me, in a horrified voice, that now trees were going to grow out of my ears and nose and mouth. Of course, believing him, I was horrified, and started crying. He just kept up with this story, laughing all the time at my distress. My mother was there also, and I remember she was giving him dirty looks, but he didn’t stop. Another memory I have of him is my brother and I, I was 5 years old and my brother was less than 1 years old, standing in a courtroom with my mother, at their divorce proceedings. He was looking at me and winking and smiling and my mother was throwing all the jewelry his mother had given me and her on a table. He had demanded my mother give him all the jewelry that his mother had given her, and for that my mother could keep us children. So he basically sold my brother and me to my mother for all the gold (quite a bit) that his mother had given to my mom and to me. And while he was smiling and winking at me, he wasn’t thinking of the effect it would have on me of him walking out of the courtroom and out of my life. Yes, that was the last time I saw him until I was 40, a total of 35 years, and then it was I who looked him up and went to meet him in Karachi. And yes, it isn’t lost on me that if I hadn’t looked him up, he would never have made the effort. I met him and one of his sons from his second marriage and his second wife.They were both very nice people, and I keep in touch with my half brother a little, I used to when I lived in Buffalo.
He seemed to be very loving to me and my son (who came with me) but even then when I saw him after 35 years, he told me this story: His wife was pregnant with their 4th child. They had had 3 boys. So he went down on his knees and prayed and prayed to god to let him have a daughter. Ouch diss! There I was, his first daughter, that he had so completely abandoned that he didn’t even think I was his daughter anymore. Well he got his wish, he had his daughter. And he failed to think of me and my brother ever. His wife and son told me that after my mother left with us children, he went into a severe depression. I marveled at the fact that they actually wanted me to feel sorry for him. And I actually did. I felt sorry for all of us, the humongous mess that both my parents had made of our lives.
My father was the scion of a very wealthy family from Bhopal, related to the Nawab (Duke) of Bhopal. He was the youngest child and was basically raised by his eldest sister and spoiled rotten beyond belief.
My mother was the most beautiful daughter of a very wealthy family in Sheikhupur, in northern India. They owned 1000’s of acres of land and were extremely wealthy landowners. She was her father’s favorite, and therefore, also extremely spoiled. My grandfather was the first person in his family to go to college, he became a lawyer, then a Magistrate, and then the Deputy Tax Collector in Queen Victoria’s government. He also had very liberal views and believed in educating his daughters as well as his sons. So he sent my mother to Medical School in Bhopal. Which is where my father was trolling the girls’ dormitories for pretty girls. He saw my mother and apparently it was love at first sight. They sang together in competitions, they were in plays together, etc. etc. Eventually they got married and I was born. My grandmother, my aunts and uncles took me to Pakistan with them in August 1960, I was 2 months old. They kept me for the first two years of my life, while my mother finished her medical school. Then my parents came to Pakistan and took me back and the fireworks began. My brother was born in 1964.
What started out with attraction and, seemingly, love, how did it go so horribly wrong? And so I sit here, trying to unravel the mess that my parents made 55 years ago.
So anyway, I didn’t choose someone like my father to marry, at least that was sort of smart on my part. I did not choose gorgeous light colored eyes, charming, smiling, outgoing, amazingly intelligent. That was what I had been abandoned by, why would I choose that? I’ve met people like that, and my subconscious somehow picks up on their traits, or at least thinks it does and sometimes I feel I have issues to resolve with them, but it is not with these particular people that I have issues, the issues are those I had with my father.
I have really forgiven my mother, now I must work on forgiving my father for abandoning me. It’s difficult to accept that all you ever were was just collateral damage from your parents wars and problems. I seem never to have had any importance for my own sake and being.
I wonder sometimes, what I would have been like if I’d grown up in a relatively normal family.
But now I have to stop. I have to go on with my life. Forgive, forget. Move forward. Do something, get a job, get a PhD, do something to stay busy. That’s my advice to my self. And of course keep writing my Blog. I love doing it and sometimes, it is very therapeutic!
Beautiful American for Rachel Corrie
I was just going through all the blog posts that WordPress shows in a Reader and look at what I found. Disgusting and criminal, yet the world just sits and does nothing to help the Palestinians. I wonder if any action was taken against the bulldozer driver who killed this young American woman. Disgusting!
(Rachel Corrie murdered on March 16, 2003)
“We should be inspired by people … who show that human beings can be … strong—even in the most difficult circumstances.” -Rachel Corrie
Beautiful American
Poem by Coyote Poetry
When you give your life for another. These people are the Angels waiting in heaven.
Beautiful American
(For Rachel Corrie. A human shield protecting woman and children.)
Just a woman.
She gave her heart to people far from her home.
Stood in front of guns and machines to save lives.
Protecting innocent people from.
The War machine in the hidden parts of the world from the world’s eye sight.
She stood in front of a building.
Was crushed and die by Israel machinery.
Her life was lost for woman/men.
Who call her the Beautiful American..
Coyote
( Need to go to her site. Rachel Corrie.
People like her are the real Angels in…
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March of the Flamingos – series finale iii
A sad yet inspirational post by The Public Blogger.
PTSD
There are many reasons one can develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.) Previously known as shell shock, tells you that soldiers on the battle field, when they came home developed it. War is an awful, sick thing, and what soldiers see and experience in war is something NO ONE should ever have to be a part of.
Soldiers get flashbacks, where they might have nightmares about or feel as though those horrible, traumatic events are happening again.
They have massive amounts of anxiety and fear and may have panic attacks.
They have a much stronger and more easily activatable startle response.
They can dissociate, where they feel and react as if the things that were happening to them during war, are happening again.
Sometimes, they live in the same fear and terror they experienced in the war.
They may even become agoraphobic, or develop other phobias.
They may use substances or activities to quell their fears, sometimes becoming addicts.
They may experience feelings of great distress and have intense physical reactions.
They may have trouble sleeping, irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, feeling jumpy and being easily startled, and being hypervigilant ( constantly on “red alert”).
This is what happens to soldiers when they come home from wars. But it happens to other people as well. It can happen to people who have been assaulted. It can happen to people who were involved in a terrorist attack. It can happen to people who have experienced the death of a loved one and it can happen to people who were abused as children. That’s my category. After reading about PTSD, I realize that I have been living with many of its symptoms. “Dissociation”, hypervigilance, irritability or anger, reacting like a disaster is happening when it truly is not, having HUGE over reactions to some events. Another thing I think I can attribute to my PTSD is the need to control things and always having butterflies in my stomach and being fearful. And always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The childhood abuse that happened to me robbed me of my peace of mind. It made my mind hypervigilant and anxious, always on alert for the next awful thing that was going to happen. And now, sometimes, I have realized that I even dissociate and react to events, benign events, as though I was being abused again, over reacting 😦 This abuse robbed me of my childhood. Well, that’s one thing I’m never getting back. But I can get back my peace of mind, the inner child work I’ve done and continue to do has helped with that. What else can help? Well here’s a self help list:
Spending time in nature
Mindful breathing
Exercise
Listening to uplifting music
Meditation
Invoking relaxation response and often
Socializing and connecting with people
Vocal toning (!) making a mmmm sound until you experience a pleasant sound, seriously, I found it on the internet… so it must work… ;;-)
Taking care of yourself, avoiding drugs and alcohol.
Volunteering!
Support group
There’s even a mobile PTSD App! http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/materials/apps/PTSDCoach.asp
Basically all things and anything that will increase your relaxation response and decrease anxiety. And for me, of course, reading about abandonment, child abuse, and taking care of my inner child (which I think is the same as your fight or flight response) has been instrumental in my healing process!
Here’s something I found on: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/treatment/cope/
Self-Help Options
- PTSD Coach: Mobile App
With you when you need it, PTSD Coach is a free iPhone app that can help you learn about and manage symptoms that commonly occur after trauma. Also available for Android. - Lifestyle Changes Recommended for PTSD Patients
Discusses changes in your way of life that can help with PTSD. - Mindfulness Practice in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress
Discusses changes in your way of life that can help with PTSD. - Mindfulness Coach
Grounding yourself in the present moment can help you cope better with unpleasant thoughts and emotions. The Mindfulness Coach app will help you do this. - Peer Support Groups
Describes peer support groups and gives suggestions on how to locate a group to help those diagnosed with PTSD or caring for someone with PTSD. - Dogs and PTSD
Describes dogs as pets, service animals, and emotional support animals and discusses what is known about the role of dogs in PTSD recovery. - PTSD, Work, and Your Community
Explains why people who do not understand PTSD may treat you differently (stigma). Read about how you can use community services or a job to change their minds.
You can also get professional help as in a therapist, who might do CBT, or Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, or Psychodynamic Therapy. Medication such as SSRI’s (if you don’t have bipolar d/o) may also be used.
Well how about that! Psilocybin leads to more openness!
Amazing, openness was increased, for over a year, in people who were given Psilocybin, the psychoactive molecule of magic mushrooms. The experiment was done in a controlled laboratory environment. Feelings of transcendence were also experienced. But darn, they also experienced fear, anxiety, and distress. Take out those three and count me in as an experimental subject, dear scientists 😉
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| Psilocybe mexicana, the mushroom from which psilocybin was first extracted. Credit: Cactu, Wikipedia |
Just one strong dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms can alter a person’s personality for more than a year and perhaps permanently, a new study finds.
People given psilocybin, the compound in “magic mushrooms” that causes hallucinations and feelings of transcendence, demonstrated a more “open” personality after their experience, an effect that persisted for at least 14 months. Openness is a psychological term referring to an appreciation for new experiences. People who are more open tend to have broad imaginations and value emotion, art and curiosity.
This personality warp is unusual, said study researcher Katherine MacLean, because personality rarely changes much after the age of 25 or 30. (In fact, one recent study found that by first grade
our personalities are set pretty much for life.)
“This is one of the first studies to show that you actually can change adult personality,” said MacLean, a postdoctoral researcher at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The root of the change seems to be not the drug itself, MacLean told LiveScience, but the mystical experiences that psilocybin often triggers. These profound, transcendent feelings feel no less real to people for being chemically induced, she said. [How Do Hallucinogens Work?]
“Many years later, people are saying it was one of the most profound experiences of their life,” MacLean said. “If you think about it in that context, it’s not that surprising that it might be permanent.”
Tripping for science
Research on hallucinogens is usually associated with 1960s counterculture figures such as Ken Kesey and his LSD-fueled “Acid Test” parties. But within the last decade, a somber, step-by-step approach tostudying the effect of hallucinogens has emerged, MacLean said. Experiments are tightly controlled — it’s not easy to get permission to give volunteers illegal drugs — but they are revealing that substances associated more with Grateful Dead concerts than the psychiatrist’s office may have medical uses after all. [Senses and Non-Sense: 7 Odd Hallucinations]
In Massachusetts, the nonprofit research institute MAPS, or Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, is investigating the possibility of using the hallucinogen MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Both LSD and psilocybin are under investigation for their use in treating anxiety; MacLean’s postdoctoral adviser at Johns Hopkins, Roland Griffiths, is leading a study to find out if psilocybin might ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients. Another of Griffiths’ studies focuses on using psilocybin to break nicotine addiction.
In the current study, MacLean and her colleagues looked at personality questionnaires from 51 people who had taken psilocybin as part of two separate Johns Hopkins studies. The volunteers were all new to hallucinogenic drugs.
Each person attended between two and five eight-hour drug sessions in which they would sit blindfolded on a couch listening to music — a way to encourage introspection. During one of the sessions, the volunteers received a moderate-to-high dose of psilocybin, but neither they nor the experimenters knew whether they would be swallowing a psilocybin pill or a placebo on any given day.
In one experiment, participants came into the laboratory twice. On one visit they were given the real deal and another time they got Ritalin, which mimics the side effects of psilocybin without the hallucinations.
In another experiment, over a course of five sessions, participants received either a placebo or one of varying doses of the drug. For the purposes of this study, the researchers focused on the high-dose session, which was the same dose given during the first experiment.
Before the drug sessions, the participants filled out the personality questionnaire that measured openness. They also filled out the same questionnaires a few weeks later and then again about 14 months after their high hallucinogenic dose.
Transcendence in a pill
The results, published today (Sept. 29) in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, revealed that while other aspects of personality stayed the same, openness increased after a psilocybin experience. The effect was especially persistent for those who reported a “mystical” experience with their dose. These mystical experiences were marked by a sense of profound connectedness, along with feelings of joy, reverence and peace, MacLean said. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]
“It’s probably not just psilocybin that causes changes like this, but more these kinds of profound life-changing experiences, whatever flavor they take,” she said. “For a lot of people, psilocybin allows them to transcend their ways of thinking about the world.”
About 30 of the 51 volunteers had a mystical experience, MacLean said. The openness changes in these participants were larger than those changes typically seen over decades of life experience in adults.
But this is a strictly do-not-try-this-at-home experiment, MacLean cautioned. The participants in the study were under close supervision during their session with the drug. Psychological support and preparation helped keep bad trips to a minimum, but many participants still reported fear, anxiety and distress after taking psilocybin.
“I could see how in an unsupervised setting, if that sort of fear or anxiety set in, the classic bad trip, it could be pretty dangerous,” MacLean said, adding that the risk of unsupervised usage outweighs any potentialreward. Psilocybin is classified as a Schedule I drug in the U.S., meaning the government considers it to have a high potential for abuse and no legitimate medical purpose. [The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]
It’s not yet clear whether unsupervised usage would even result in the same changes in openness as seen in the study, MacLean said. The study group was small, and was already more religious and more open than the general population.
MacLean is now researching the effects of combining psilocybin with meditation. There could be therapeutic benefits to boosting openness, she said, including helping people break out of negative thought patterns. The studies might also illuminate the anecdotal connection between hallucinogens and art, she said: “On the most speculative side, this suggests that there might be an application of psilocybin for creativity or more intellectual outcomes that we really haven’t explored at all.”
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