Could you do the math on that? How many titles? How many prints of each title? It wasn't just Bibles, was it?

If there were just 50 titles printed in those few years, and only 1000 prints of each book made, that would be just enough for 1000 literate people to have a full library of 50 books. What was the population of Europe at the time, 50,000,000?

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

I think you need to watch the film and/or read the book again. The story is one long, strange trip, full of drug use references.

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

That's asking a LOT of coincidence. Alice sees most of this stuff after the hookah and mushrooms. Not to mention that smoking opium was a very common practice in Lewis Carroll's time, and there are reports that he was indeed a user. As I say, it's asking a lot of coincidence.

Here's a question;
The argument has been made here that certian substances help some people be more creative. But how many creative works of art--be it paintings, literature, movies, music, whatever--were done by artists who do not use these substances?

And what about all the people that do use these substances, and who live in ruin, poverty? Or live in mal-health?

Couldn't it be possible that the examples listed did well in spite of their substance use, rather than because of it?

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

That's a good question. Anecdotal, but in my experience pot, for example, may actually enhance your creativity...but may also decrease your motivation to get up off your arse and actually create something; I have seen this over and over again, and suspect it is true for many (all?) creativity enhancing drugs.

Lets also throw in the idea that maybe these people who are "more creative" when using a certain substance could be under the placebo effect. Self-doubt, or the thought that "I'm not smart enough, creative enough, etc" or even just the feeling of "I'm not special, how can I do this on my own" ... but then they use substance x and suddenly feel that it's their magic potion.

"I can't do this on my own, but with this I can suddenly think clearly!"

Remember this when someone says they're more creative, a better musician, funnier, whatever when they're high; there's also people that say that the shiny magnetized bracelet on their wrist cures their arthritis. People aren't always the best judges of their own state of being.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I think it is safe to say that can be a major factor as well. Or just to quiet the dogs barking that some of us have in our heads.

In any case, at the end of the day, I do think creativity is far better served by being straight.

Yeah, I have wondered about this as well. I remember many years ago reading an interview with Rush's drummer Neal Peart; in which he talked about the process that Rush used to write their music. Basically, the other band memebers would come up with the music, and then Neal would smoke some weed, listen to the score, and come up with the lyrics. He stated that the marijuana helped him to think from a different perspective. I have to give him credit; he did come up with some pretty creative lyrics. He didn't say whether the other two band members used anything to help them write the music.

When I was younger during my college days, I tried it from time to time. I remember the experience being more subtle and relaxing than alcohol. Listening to music was fun. I didn't do it very often, mostly because I have always disliked smoking anything. I always felt like my lungs were on fire during the smoking. Other people I knew didn't seem to have a problem with it, especially if they already smoked tobacco. Still, it can't be very good for your lungs; but I suppose that in moderation, it can't be as bad as smoking cigarettes all day long, as many people do.

Anyway, I don't remember any creative enhancement for me(even though I was usually with friends and not actively trying to be creative), and I do wonder how much of this enhancement may be the result of the placebo effect.

I must admit that once, marijuana did hurt me. It happened during the "Rocky Horror Picture Show". I laughed so hard at the antics of the idiots around me, that my sides hurt for a couple of days!

Being somewhat of an artist myself, I do not paint under the influence of psychedelics. Cannabis, yes, but that is a very mild high, more helpful in just relaxing and increasing your focus on the task at hand. I have met only a few of a rare type who create art (paint, music, etc.) under the influence of psychedelics, but they do the majority of it while not.

Remember, most people who use psychedelics do so very infrequently. If I only painted whilst "tripping", I would have only painted 6 times in my life.

I would estimate that I have probably sat down and painted around 150 times in my life. I tried once while on mushrooms. It wasn't for me. So far I am 150:1. Doesn't seem like a placebo to me...

Yes, the heat and particulates can irritate the lungs/throat. Using a water pipe or a vaporizer solves that. And no, you don't need to smoke more with a water pipe. THC isn't water soluble.

__________________
"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

I can't recall any details to show this, but the main pattern that stood out to me when I read about the lives of various Impressionist painters, Romantic Era composers, and their counterparts in prose and poetry, was not that they generally did or did not use recreational drugs. What was pretty consistent about them was that they lived lives of misery, self-destruction, driving away or dragging down others around them, and suicide attempts. Some who lived long enough recovered, but this was after they had done their famous works and their careers were burned out. You'll also recognize this pattern if you've seen at least a few episodes of VH1's biography series on modern musicians and actors. For those who were druggies, that was just a little part of this general picture.

There definitely seems to be a connection between creativity and depression issues. Certainly true in my case.

Maybe, but recall that creative types are often counter-cultural by definition, and that can result in depression.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Uh...while I can buy correlation, causality seems a bit of a stretch. Again, anecdotal, but for myself I have always had authority issues, but that is certainly more a result of my upbringing ("Question authority!") than it is brought on by depression.

Yes, a very good observation. It tends to be related to the bi-polar condition, i.e. the "manic-depressive" condition.

One can be very depressed and go through periods of non-creativity, and then one can be very manic and go through periods of being very creative.

The manic condition is often quite a lot of fun, but it is often followed by the depressed months, then back to the manic condition again.

However, there are perscription drugs that can help control and suppress the depressed part of the condition, but without harming the creative part.

True...and I have been trough most of that...I did find the anti-depressants to be a bit anti-creativity in the sense that, you're right, my best work is usually in a "manic" phase. But at this point I muddle along pretty well without any drugs at all (OK, aspirin), although I am still mildly bi-polar. I have simply got used to it.

Which prescription drugs would those be? What evidence do you have that these drugs leave creativity intact?

Everyone that I have ever known that has been on antidepressants said that they did in fact suppress depressive feelings, but the "side effect" to that was that ALL of their feelings and emotions were nearly gone, leaving them feeling numb and bland. I would rather feel depressed some of the time rather than feel nothing at all.

The issue with antidepressants is that they are treating the symptoms of a problem, and not the underlying cause. Not to mention the side effects associated with their long term use.

My reason for suggesting research into psilocybin (or other psychedelics) assisted therapies is that they are already known to have long lasting positive effects on people, which should then be coupled with counseling.

Instead of just trying to make symptoms go away (which is the basis of almost all western medicine), you can get at the root cause of peoples reasons for depression. The phrase "psychedelics open your mind" is true in more ways than just hippie motifs. They break down boundaries in your mind, such as bringing back repressed memories. If psychologists/psychiatrists could use these chemicals as a tool for gaining insight into peoples problems during psychedelic assisted therapy sessions, by allowing these chemicals to bring forth what would normally have remainded repressed, who knows what kind of breakthroughs could be had in this field.

Alas, though, we need to make researching these compounds easier for people who want to do it!

__________________
"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

Side effects of antidepressants: Nausea, appetite increase/weight gain, sexual dysfunction, fatigue, insomnia, dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation, dizziness; agitation, restlessness, anxiety.

LSD treatment for alcoholism

LSD treatment for alcoholism gets new look

BTW, I consider alcoholism a major sign/symptom of depression. People burying themselves in a bottle daily are obviously masking some kind of inner problems.

St. Johns Wort vs. antidepressants

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

Hi. Although I disagree with your overall theme here, since you’ve asked an honest question, I will give you a straight answer.

Some psychiatrists are “one-pill” doctors. A patient goes to them saying they are “depressed”, and the doctor writes out a one-pill prescription and says, “Here, try this. This is an anti-depressant.”

But quite often, the one kind of pill is designed to lessen the depression, but without any regard to what other side-effects it has associated with it.

For example, in the 1950s doctors would prescribe “downers” like Phenobarbital. It tended to suppressed the depression, but it was a strong sedative that suppressed everything else too. It often made people sleepy and groggy.

However, in these modern times, there are new younger doctors who have been trained in the “brain chemistry” approach to psychiatry, and they will often prescribe several different medications for a patient, in order to lower the depression but not destroy the creativity. This can often be done with low doses of each drug.

This is a delicate task, and the patient needs to understand the complexity of the issue at hand. Also, the patient needs to not “self medicate” with any other drug or with alcohol and especially not with any illegal drug.

A couple of years ago, there was a news story out near where I live where a teenage boy stole a car. The cops began chasing him. They chased him to a dead-end mesa top, where the kid abandoned the car and ran out on the tip-end of the mesa. The kid had a gun. The cops closed in. The kid was so terrified, freaked out, and panicked, he finally couldn’t take the stress anymore and he shot and killed himself.

Knowing the situations out here with a lot of teenagers, it was quite likely he was a pot smoker and maybe some other kind of illegal drug user. What the kid did not realize was that he was having a fairly simple “panic attack”, which could have been treated by a doctor with some prescription drug like Xanax, or even with the old kind of Phenobarbital. The cops didn’t know what to do except “catch the fleeing suspect”. No doctor was called in. The kid was dead at the end of the day, while all he actually did that was illegal was steal a car and run from the cops. This is certainly not something worth killing oneself over.

I’ve seen this many times in the news business. Kids freaking out on some kind of dope, such as maraijuana or speed or something else, and having a “panic attack”, especially if the cops become involved, which seems to them like an “end of the world” type of situation. While I see other kids not on dope, not stealing cars, and not having panic attacks. And I see some others who are not on dope but who "naturally" have some mild panic attacks that they treat with the care of a psychiatrist and proper medication.

You are making a bad mistake. You are NOT a doctor. You are NOT qualified to tell other people what drugs to take or not take. Especially since there are plenty of teenagers and young people on this message board.

Do you even click on links when they are posted?

That one is from the Mayo Clinic. Heard of it? One of the best in the world. Are they qualified, Sam?

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

Such a typical propaganda story.

Unfortunate, indeed. No one wants to see people freak out and kill themselves.

Even as you said yourself, if he had known he was only having a panic attack, he could have easily been calmed down. Sure, cannabis may have caused the panic attack, but there was most certainly much more going on in his life to cause suicide than just pot. If this were the case, millions of people would be blowing their brains out after smoking a bowl, and this simply is not the case.

Now if our society were to accept that people are going to use cannabis and learn to educate ourselves on its effects instead of stifling discussion in the name of societal taboo, maybe his young man would have realized this, for he would have been educated just as I am sure he was with alcohol and tobacco, and he would still be alive today.

Annual causes of death in U.S.. Tobacco: 435,000. Alcohol: 85,000. How many people directly killed by cannabis? Zero (0).

Nice try, Sam.

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

I give you a straight answer and you give me a rude sarcastic response.

If you look on the “warning” labels of hundreds of drugs today, many of them will have listed: “Nausea, appetite increase/weight gain, sexual dysfunction, fatigue, insomnia, dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation, dizziness; agitation, restlessness, anxiety.”

That does not mean that all the drugs will produce all of those side-effects. These are just ones to watch out for.

Again, you are trying to practice medicine without a license. You are trying to claim that ALL “anti-depressants” will produce ALL of those symptoms, which is NOT true.

Please highlight and bold where I said ALL AD's will cause ALL of those symptoms. Also, modern medicine has no clue as to the long term side effects of the antidepressant drugs.

I am not practicing without a license. I am merely pointing to research that may offer an alternative to current medical treatments, and advocating for the relaxation of laws with the intent of opening up avenues for sound scientific research.

And also, your little story above is an Appeal to Emotion, a logical fallacy.

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

I understand how it works, and I respectfully disagree with the whole paradigm. Yes, antidepressants can help with depression symptoms, but they don't cure depression. I liken them to turning up the radio in a car when the engine starts making noise. It will only last so long before the whole thing breaks down.

You still didn't provide evidence that creativity stays intact in patients using antidepressants.

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

This indicates a lack of understanding about certain types of depression.

Some people suffer from depression because their nervous systems either don't produce enough of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine to allow certain signals to effectively cross the synapse between nerve cells or the reuptake mechanism on the receiving nerve cell reduces the concentration in synapse to quickly and thus attenuates the signal. For those who suffer from this sort of genetically induced depression certain substances, such as venlafaxine, can act as reuptake inhibitors. They have a preferred binding energy for reuptake sites that has the overall effect of slowing the rate at which the reuptake system reduces the concentration of these neurotransmitters.

It is true, that antidepressants don't cure depression but then injections of insulin don't cure diabetes. However, neither should be seen as simply "masking" the symptoms either. They both attempt to reset a balance that's been disrupted by chemical imbalances within the human body. This issue, in both cases, is not a "masking" symptoms vs a curing of the condition, but an attempt to correct a a very delicate system with the equivalent of "stone knives and bear skins". The devil is in our current inability to understand and control the complete system. The breakdown comes from the damage that occurs over time from the the system being periodically pushed outside the narrow limits that don't cause damage to the body or unintended side-effects that can be toxic.

In time, medicine will advance and our understanding and abilities in such areas will improve. Medicine will be able to operate with scalpels rather jack hammers.

From what I've heard (from various forgotten sources), it's not established that the problem is caused by levels of serotonin, just that good regulation of serotonin helps (a lot). I don't think the real cause of depression is known--the brain is a complex chaotic system that grows in a complex way--tiny randomness during growth can result in big changes at maturity (though we've evolved "canalization" to minimize this effect or else every child will be "mentally ill" by the standards of all the others (I mean more different than the variability we have anyway)--but it's still there--probably again through evolution or we'd not adapt to environmental changes). Depression could begin anywhere in this process. (and I don't think it's 100% sure that it's not in the education process rather than the growth process--as minds, not just brains, are complex entities--i.e. it's not certain whether it's a hardware or software problem--and Zoloft, working on the hardware, can fix software in theory--as the two are so interconnected in brains).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

And yet science can, and has, shown the that in so many cases depression tends to run in families and tends to affect children in a fashion that strongly suggests a genetic link. One can then add to this the results of studies in which such individuals were given antidepressants and the result were extremely positive. Finally, these medications don't mask symptoms, they simply slow the uptake system to a more normal level. If you administer these substances to those who suffer from mild depression such as that caused by the lost of a loved one, in most cases they have no more than a placebo effect. The idea that they can keep someone from feeling sad is nonsense.

The problem is that psychiatrists have defined clinical depression as any depression that disrupts ones life for a period of two weeks or more. This in itself is considered most ridiculous by many. It means that just about anyone who has broken up with someone, lost a loved one, or has had a mildly traumatic experience is going to suffer from "clinical depression". One of these days, when the dust and nonsense settle out, antidepressants will be able to help those who are truly suffer from severe chronic depression. In the mean time, the evidence has started many to look for genetic material that may induce depression in some individuals.

Every business wants more customers. Problems are inevitable when the government makes the business' services compulsory in circumstances that are open to the business to define.

Hmm, yes, I had forgotten about depression running in families. I do agree, though, that antidepressants work in the short term. The area where I disagree is using them as a fix all. There should be more of an effort to help people with depression from the base of their problems, not just...

...pick a pill and hope it works. The method should focus more on "Doctor, I am depressed.""Ok, here, sit down and tell me what is bothering you."

I think everybody agrees that just talking about your problems, whether it be chemical assisted therapy or not, can greatly ease depressive moods. Works for me. I think there should be more of a focus on non-drug depression treatments, with single drug sessions being next, and finally SSRI's if nothing else works. A co-workers dad is a naturopathic psychiatrist, and he uses no drugs; only counseling and nutrition therapies, and has pretty good success.

I wonder where the Placebo Effect fits in here, if it does at all? I mean, it really is an amazing effect, literally "mind over matter". I am surprised there isn't more investigation into it. I wonder if people have ever been given placebos, but were told they were antidepressants?

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com

I couldn't agree more. Medicine for profit is a very slippery slope, especially when you realize that we are one of the un-healthiest countries in the world, but spend the most on health care out of anybody.

It will be interesting to see what changes when (and if) the government begins paying for health care. Countries in Europe that have universal health care all focus on prevention, not maintenance.

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"In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity."- Fritjof Capra

www.gonzoscience.com