@ScottTriGuy
I did read that book! Wow that's so cool that laser helped you. I need to look into that
Yes...near immediate changes. Right- the training and repetition to get some of the 're-wiring' to occur was quite a lot when trying to use non-drug approaches. They worked, but it took so much effort that after a year of full on dedication, and some great gains that started coming on slower and slower, I wanted to enjoy feeling a bit better and having more time out of bed instead of funneling most of my ok time into the training practices. I did try anti-depressants before LSD, and they did help some, at least in the sense of keeping the still pretty strong anxiety a bit more muted, so I was able to cope better with living with the symptoms. IT did seem to diminish the symptoms some too but not as dramatically as with the LSD.
There are some good research papers out there showing how LSD is a potent anti-inflammatory substance; I don't understand the physiological mechanism they describe but my opinion is that this one of two ways that he drug is helping. The other way, which researchers are trying to explore using FMRI and things like that, is how different regions of the brain start communicating and showing activity while under the influence. So apparently people sometimes can smell colors and taste music (I haven't ever experienced that). While interesting to experience I bet, that doesn't seem immediately helpful...but its an example of the larger picture of what's happening, where the parts of the brain are interacting in all these novel ways, which overrides the 'default mode network' - that limbic hyperreactive part that we're trying to tame with the brain training. And truthfully, while under the influence, it feels like the drug turns the volume waaaaaaaaay down on that stressed out, chattery part of you. Sweet relief. Granted, your mind with its newfound freedom might be going in silly, confusing, creative, mystical adventures that you have to endure until the experience is over some 10 hours later. It's not always fun but I just remind myself that that's part of loosening up the patterns/neuroplasticity.
Of course with microdoses, this loosening seems to happen at a much more subtle but still useful scale, without having to go through the sometimes fun or profound or scary places your brain goes when you let it off the leash with bigger doses.
I've been messing around with micro and macro for 6 going on 7 months. At first the micro was like taking an aspirin, and having your headache go away for a bit. Over time, I slowly noticed my sleep improving, my stress lowered, my anxiety becoming more robust and appropriate for the gravity of the situation at hand. Weird pains started going away, thought loops less common, happier demeanor, and the body's response to my triggers changed- and after a couple months, pretty cool stuff, like being able to go somewhere moldy and recover pretty quick (e.g. 2 days of feeling half mast and fatigued but still functional, vs years of an exposure meaning total cloudintheface for a week or more, leading to bedrest and of course all sorts of weird physical symptoms, after which you get a bit better but still feel baseline crappy). Sorry it takes a bit to explain- the periods of relief after doing it got longer and longer. At this point, quite a few things seem to be permanent although I suppose I haven't been at this all that long. I do know after switching over to doing more infrequent but full doses that some symptoms and sensitivity to triggers seem to get knocked out. I've kind of been a pig in eating all the things that were offlimits for years but are now suddenly ok and seems like the green light on these is stickingn around.
