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larry, dfh

Like I mentioned before, most of the big pharmas rely heavily on 'legitimate' drugs of (potential) abuse. You remember the 60's. LSD came from...Switzerland, Sandoz in specific. I don't know who made Quaaludes, but some outfit profited. I remember TV a show "Reading, Writing, asnd Reefer" many years ago, brought to us by three drug companies. These companies give heavily to the NIMH, which in turn helps give the thumbs up to their drugs (via the FDA). The clinical trial that OK'd Ritalin was 6 weeks in adult males. It's now given to millions of children for years. People taking these powerful drugs need monitoring, but insurance doesn't pay for many visits, so the patients are eventually left on their own. Also, some people like to go for the 'combined effect', that's why I call them drugs of (potential) abuse.
My own belief, based only on enzymology: that the same chemical intermediate (more or less) leads to seratonin in humans, and psilocybin in fungi. Both are products of a Cytochrome P-450 enzyme consortium, emanating from an indole-4,5-epoxide. I don't believe the conversion to seratonin (5-hyroxy) is 100%, and that some of the intermediate goes toward the psilocybin (4-hydroxy) analog. In other words, to a greater or lesser degree, we're all tripping our brains out.

blues

I have been 'treated' for my developmental condition since I was maybe 11 years old. It was 'mild', so they didn't have any idea what was wrong, basically. I'm 60 now and they have thrown an awful lot of their ammo at me, even more or less Freudian dream analysis. Virtually none of all their drugs and therapies did squat. Not only that, about half the doctors and therapists were perverted bastards. How would you like to have perverted bastards interpret your dreams?

People with developmental conditions tend to have trouble getting to sleep, I have read, and experienced. I don't remember many dreams, but the few I do have are really terrifying. I have had two complete sleep studies at behavioral neurology clinics (at Harvard), and my 'sleep structure' seems to be very complex. One very strange thing. Did you ever spend the morning writing letters or something, and then finally looked out the window and be completely flabbergasted that ten feet of snow had fallen during the night? Sometimes at odd moments during the day I suddenly 'remember' something that I have learned while asleep. Maybe like the answer to some hellaciously complex math formula, or something like that.

As far as these SSRIs... Okay, the brain has many (in the hundreds, I think) of special chemicals that are shot out of neural axons and other structures, and collected by dendrites and other structures, and these chemicals are deemed neurotransmitters. the spaces they cross between communicating neurons are called synapses. Now, not all of these substances are collected, and some are 'sent back' to be 'reuptaken' by the axons (I guess for recycling). So selective reuptake inhibitors block this reuptaking process, thus theoretically producing special effects. But maybe it would be best to just forget about all this 'SSRI theory' and just talk about so-called 'antidepressants'. There is considerable reason to believe that some percentage of people who just feel bad will feel better if they just take these chemicals every day. But there are strange risks...

For one thing, in my case, they don't make me feel a bit better. Plus they absolutely block sleep, so I may stay up for five days, which is incredibly awful. They also cause me to think about useless things that I would never begin to contemplate without them, and that's just too freaky.

Some of them are said to reduce pain, and some are vasodilators, such as Viagra, which is used for erectile dysfunction and heart failure. Some of them are notorious for causing homicidal and suicidal thoughts, in a Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of effect. I doubt whether this due to their releasing some deep, unconscious drive (I don't go along with all of Elaine's notions...). I do think there is a rather simple instinct to kill, and that this instinct was put there by thousands of generations of warrior-breeding. I think the whole reason why we have catastrophic population overshoot, into the billions and billions, is that warlords promote puritanical religions that, paradoxically, yet reliably, always end up causing the birth of surplus cannon fodder. And now we have drugs that intensify this death instinct. I'll bet Bush and all of his white house cronies pop them like candy. Great. And I would bet that all of our troops get them. Hell, the Apocalypse branch of the Fundies must eat bowls-full! A new weapon of mass destruction, for sure. With enough of these babies, I'd bet you could get people to fly planes into buildings.

But some medical chemicals are useful. Drugs like Neurontin often help people who get seizures. People with neural dysfunction generally only get better by practicing things they can hardly do. Eight years ago I could never have typed this page!

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Some people have chemical disfunctions. But to give merely depressed people these drugs is very dangerous. Evidently, some people are born anti-social. This can be caused by genetic differences.

After all, Orangatangs are very successful antisocial primates! So we do have that gene tucked in somewhere.


Thank you for everything both of you wrote. It is very interesting information. I agree with a lot of what you all say. Except for one thing that people find hard to believe: the key to our souls are in our dreams.

And even if you can't remember your dreams, if you believe that these nightly visits are good for you and are showing you things you can't face during the day, you won't be so scared of them. Namely, the monsters in the dreams are ourselves but then, hiding them in the dark only makes them grow.


Inviting them into the consciousness means being able to face yourself, myself, all of us. For they are there no matter what, they get to watch us during the day before they come out at night. They are privvy to our every impulsive thought.


This is why there is no 'cure' but there is a path: note that the Muses and Graces also live in the same realm as the Medusa monsters. Pegasus came out of Medusa's head when she was slain. Translating what we feel deep inside into art, music, dance, writing, etc. is the path out of fear!


Note how many of our greatest creative scientists, composers, artists and poets were completely crazy! Some more so than others. But there it is: we need this divine madness. It can be a gift as well as a curse.

Elaine Meinel Supkis

My husband, by the way, blues, takes Neurotin because the brain damage makes his hands shake violently and he had convulsions. He is now able to pick up a glass of water and not have it go flying, for example.


We are not joking when we say, we feel your pain. It is very terrifying, having things not work the way you want it to. This is why I am not against chemicals for fixing malfunctions of the brain but chemicals for fixing PERSONALITY problems is a whole different kettle of fish.

blues

Thanks so much for the good will and kind blessing. We have very little in common, Elaine, but in some odd ways we have lots to discuss, or even argue about. Not a bad situation, from my perspective. We both have many strange stories to tell. But I have a flue or something, and feel very tired.

When much younger, I had these very minor Jacksonian events on rare occasions. I would try to catch them quickly with my intent, and in a wordless language would tell them to go away. And they would stop.

I am two people really. There is the blues that can see or read, and there is the another side, which I have cultivated. Unlike the visible blues, it does not get entangled in love and hate and passion. Yet it is more vibrant and alive than the side that is ruled by passion and logic. It is discussed in Lao Tzu, the texts of the Sufis, the Amerinds, and, stripped of its religious skin, Buddhism, etc. I am not terribly deep into this other self, but I know of its infinite power and strangeness. There is much to indicate that this way is not compatible with the way of the psychics. But I do not really know if this last point is accurate.

¤The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.¤

Kilgore Trout, (Philip Jose Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell"
pseud. of Philip Jose Farmer

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/486.html

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Trout fishing in America. Heh.


Yes, we can be many people and still be all the same at the same time. This is why Freud said there were three people involved, the Id, the Ego and the Superego. I see these terms have vanished. I still use them. They are quite useful still.

blues

Dammit Elaine, the great way has nothing even slightly to do with the Id, the Ego or the Superego. It leads to the source of all that is. It accepts its toll quietly, making no demands. It is infinite.

Mark Twain:

"Sacred cows make the best hamburgers."

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I haven't gotten anything done lately. Not much on my mind recently. I just don't have much to say right now. My mind is like an empty room.

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I haven't been up to much recently, but whatever. I just don't have much to say lately. Basically nothing happening to speak of. So it goes. My mind is like a complete blank. Such is life.

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I haven't gotten much done. Basically nothing noteworthy going on right now, but shrug. I can't be bothered with anything recently. I guess it doesn't bother me. Maybe tomorrow. I feel like a bunch of nothing.

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