Blue Dreams
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The more care you lavish on a person: Kaptchuk et al., “Components of Placebo Effect,” 999. See also Schattner, “The Placebo Debate.”
6. Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms): God’s Flesh
Carol Vincent found a strange swelling: Personal interview with Carol Vincent, April 14, 2016.
He believes meditation “opened up a spiritual window”: Brown and Reitman, “An Interview with Roland Griffiths.” See also Khazan, “The Life-Changing Magic of Mushrooms.”
His landmark study of the drug: Griffiths et al., “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences,” 284–92.
Huxley’s written request to inject him: Huxley, This Timeless Moment, 320.
Kast’s statistical analysis: Grof, The Ultimate Journey, 204–6.
Kast went on to study 128 cancer patients: Ibid., 205.
Kast’s study with eighty people: Ibid.
Wasson hated mushrooms: Wasson, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom.” See also Wasson and Wasson, Mushrooms, Russia, and History, 22.
Wasson had heard stories: Wasson, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom.”
“they cried out in rapture over the firmness”: Ibid.
“I am a cloud person, a dew-on-the-grass person”: Ibid.
The mushrooms were sacred to them: Ibid.
“everything took on a Mexican character”: Pollan, “The Trip Treatment.”
Timothy Leary learning about the magic mushrooms: Parker, “Intelligent People Keep Growing and Changing,” 12–19.
Grof’s description of “psychedelic therapy”: Grof, The Ultimate Journey, 207.
“all our patients…transcended the realm of postnatal biography”: Ibid.
“fear of their own physiological demise diminished”: Ibid., 209–10.
“I was taken to a fresh windswept world”: Ibid., 213–14.
Untimely death of Walter Pahnke: Ibid., 196–97, 215.
Method and process of Grof’s psychedelic sessions: Ibid., 215–28.
Case study of Matthew: Grof and Halifax, The Human Encounter with Death, 66–68.
On Matthew’s psychedelic session: Grof, The Ultimate Journey, 239–41.
Case study of Jesse: Grof and Halifax, The Human Encounter with Death, 80–81.
On Jesse’s psychedelic session: Grof, The Ultimate Journey, 253.
“The perspective of another incarnation”: Ibid.
“I don’t really have altogether a definitive answer”: Personal interview with Charles Grob, February 3, 2012.
“On psychedelics you have an experience”: Personal interview with John Halpern, February 8, 2012.
Pahnke’s Good Friday experiment: Roberts and Jesse, “Recollections of the Good Friday Experiment,” 99–103.
Eight said they had a mystical experience: Pollan, “The Trip Treatment.”
Psilocybin high shared many aspects: Ibid.
Doblin finding methodological flaws: Ibid.
Student thinking he was meant to announce the next Messiah: Doblin, “Pahnke’s ‘Good Friday Experiment,’” 1–25.
Critiques of “chemical mysticism”: Grof, The Ultimate Journey, 222.
The counterargument points out: Ibid.
Psychedelic plants may be at the root of all religions: Miller, “Religion as a Product of Psychotropic Drug Use.”
Leary’s prison experiment: Metzner, “Reflections on the Concord Prison Experiment and the Follow-Up Study,” 427–28. See also Leary et al., “A New Behavior Change Program Using Psilocybin,” 61–72.
Ayahuasca experiment in Brazil: Romero, “In Brazil, Some Inmates Get Therapy with Hallucinogenic Tea.”
Importance of set and setting: Smith, The Huston Smith Reader, 165.
“It feels a little bit like Rip Van Winkle”: Personal interview with Charles Grob, March 18, 2012.
“It is enormously exciting”: Ibid.
Psilocybin as “existential medicine”: Ibid.
Grob envisioning treatment centers: Ibid.
“Why confine this to just the dying”: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, March 3, 2012.
Griffiths’s 2006 psilocybin study: Griffiths et al., “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences,” 268.
Fourteen-month follow-up: Ibid.
Griffiths’s study and personality domains: Ibid.
“The core feature of the mystical experience”: Brown and Reitman, “An Interview with Roland Griffiths.”
Priming subjects for transcendence: Personal interview with Charles Grob, March 18, 2012.
Nutt and colleagues’ MRI study: David Nutt et al., “Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State,” 2138–43.
All patients displayed marked improvement, and five had a complete remission: Cormier, “Magic-Mushroom Drug Lifts Depression in First Human Trial.”
Additional studies done at New York University: Pollan, “The Trip Treatment.”
Grob’s findings from his psilocybin study: Grob, “Commentary on Harbor-UCLA Psilocybin Study,” 28–29.
“an intuition that consciousness is alive”: Brown and Reitman. “An Interview with Roland Griffiths.”
Griffiths exploring the role of psilocybin: Griffiths et al., “Pilot Study of the 5-HT2AR Agonist Psilocybin in the Treatment of Tobacco Addiction,” 983–92. See also Nelson, “Hallucinogen in ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Helps Longtime Smokers Quit.”
William’s experience in Griffiths’s study: Personal interview with Roland Griffiths, October 10, 2015.
“the ultimate existential medicine”: Personal interview with Charles Grob, March 18, 2012.
Rick Doblin’s mission to legalize psychedelics: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, April 8, 2017.
Doblin’s opinion regarding how psilocybin may prove useful: Ibid.
Carol Vincent listening to black spirituals: Personal interview with Carol Vincent, March 3, 2016.
7. MDMA (Ecstasy): The Marriage Medicine
Thomas and Kelly Shuge’s marital problems: Personal interview with Thomas and Kelly Shuge, November 8, 2014.
On the history and development of MDMA: Freudenmann, Oxler, and Bernschneider-Reif, “The Origin of MDMA (Ecstasy) Revisited,” 1241–45. See also Shulgin, “History of MDMA,” 1–20, esp. 4–6, and Shulgin, “The Background and Chemistry of MDMA,” 291–304, esp. 291, 297.
Shulgin feeling “absolutely clean”: Shulgin and Shulgin, Pihkal, entry 109.
Therapists using MDMA in their practice: Stolaroff, The Secret Chief Revealed.
Effectiveness of MDMA in couples counseling: Baggott et al., “Intimate Insight,” 669–77.
Doblin’s critique of Leary: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, October 11, 2015.
Percentage of Americans who have used psychedelics: Travis, “Rise in Hallucinogen Use.”
Doblin discussing social stigma of psychedelics: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, August 24, 2016.
Charles Grob and Alicia Danforth on MDMA for autistic adults with social anxiety: Danforth, “MDMA-Assisted Therapy: A New Treatment Model for Social Anxiety in Autistic Adults,” 242.
91 percent of respondents reported an increase in feelings of connectedness: Ibid.
LSD experiments with autistic children in 1960s: Ibid., 242–43.
LSD given to mute catatonic schizophrenics: Ibid.
The need for “good medical research” into MDMA: Personal interview with John Halpern, May 8, 2015.
The need for high-quality research: Personal interview with John Halpern, November 13, 2015.
Mithoefer’s MDMA study for treatment of PTSD: Mithoefer et al., “Durability of Improvement in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms.”
Second phase of Mithoefer’s study: Mithoefer et al., “The Safety and Efficacy of {+/-}3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-Assisted Psychotherapy.”
MDMA allowing patients to reframe trauma: Young et al., “3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine Facilitates Fear Extinction Learning.”
MDMA helped Kelly Shuge: Personal interviews with Thomas Shuge and Kelly Shuge, January 3, 2015, and April 15, 20
16.
Oxytocin increasing when on MDMA: Dumont et al., “Increased Oxytocin Concentrations and Prosocial Feelings in Humans.” 782–89.
Brain is “flooded” with oxytocin when on MDMA: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, May 11, 2016.
Prairie voles and oxytocin: Insel and Hulihan, “A Gender-Specific Mechanism for Pair Bonding,” 782–89.
MDMA made in Boston and Texas: Passie and Benzenhöfer, “The History of MDMA as an Underground Drug in the United States,” 67–75. See also Eisner, Ecstasy, 6, 14–15.
Senator in Texas grows concerned about MDMA: Associated Press, “U.S. Will Ban ‘Ecstasy.’” See also Beck and Rosenbaum, Pursuit of Ecstasy, 18–20.
MDMA caused neurotoxicity in rats: Ricaurte et al., “(±)3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (‘Ecstasy’)-Induced Serotonin Neurotoxicity,” 5–10.
“We saw it coming”: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, October 14, 2013.
Doblin challenges Ricaurte’s study: Ibid.
Doblin wins lawsuit: Ibid.
“For me the work has to be”: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, November 5, 2013.
Doblin fighting the DEA: Ibid.
Ricaurte claiming primates died from MDMA: Ricaurte et al., “Severe Dopaminergic Neurotoxicity in Primates.”
“they shut us right down”: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, November 5, 2013.
“We’ve seen thousands of people safely use MDMA”: Personal interview with Julie Holland, November 6, 2013.
“MDMA is just not a significant cause of psychiatric crisis”: Ibid.
Ricaurte’s retraction: Ricaurte et al., “Letters: Retraction,” 1479. See also John, “RTI Denies It Made Mistake.”
“The Ricaurte study has definitely added to the stigma”: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, March 10, 2016.
Efficacy of MDMA in treating PTSD: Mithoefer et al., “The Safety and Efficacy of {+/-}3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-Assisted Psychotherapy.”
MDMA has many applications beyond the treatment of PTSD: Personal interview with Rick Doblin, October 12, 2013.
MDMA stored at Purdue University: Ibid.
Doblin against using MDMA for couples counseling: Ibid.
Marriage is not a disease: Ibid.
“My life’s goal is to see the psychedelics”: Ibid.
8. PKMzeta/Zip (Memory Drugs): The Spotless Mind
Population doubling: Ortman and Velkoff, “An Aging Nation.”
Recalling events reactivates fear circuitry: Brunet et al., “Trauma Reactivation under the Influence of Propranolol,” 547–50.
Propranolol inhibits adrenaline: Brunet et al., “Effect of Post-Retrieval Propranolol on Psychophysiologic Responding,” 503–6.
Beta-blocker works to dilute traumatic memories: Ibid.
Todd Sacktor studying protein kinase C: Personal interview with Todd Sacktor, February 12, 2014.
Sacktor influenced by father: Ibid.
Loftus discovering suggestibility in recall: Loftus and Pickrell, “The Formation of False Memories,” 720–25.
Phelps and Hirst studying flashbulb memories: Hirst et al., “Long-Term Memory for the Terrorist Attack of September 11,” 161–76. See also Hirst et al., “A Ten-Year Follow-Up of a Study of Memory for the Attack of September 11, 2001,” 604–23.
Act of repeating a narrative somehow contaminates it: Loftus, “Our Changeable Memories,” 231–34.
Shift in mental weight alters the network of neurons: Buchanan, “Retrieval of Emotional Memories,” 761–79. See also Lehrer, “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever.”
PKMzeta always present in the brain: Personal interview with Todd Sacktor, May 30, 2015.
Jerry Yin’s experiment with fruit flies: Solomon, The Quest for Human Longevity, 130.
PKMzeta and addictions: Personal interview with Todd Sacktor, February 12, 2014.
Sacktor’s comparison of PKMzeta to a sheepdog: Humphrey, “Todd Sacktor’s Search for the Memory Enzyme.”
The mice had no memory attenuation: Volk et al., “PKM-ζ Is Not Required for Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity,” 420–23.
Memory’s backup system: Ibid.
“It turns out that when PKMzeta is genetically eliminated”: Todd Sacktor, email correspondence, May 31, 2015.
He says he hated school: Personal interview with Todd Sacktor, May 30, 2015.
ZIP undoing memories in rodents’ brains: Callaway, “Long-Term Memory Gets Wiped.”
ZIP not damaging rodents’ brains: Sacktor, “Memory Maintenance by KMζ.”
Chronic pain linked to memory: Choi et al., “Sudden Amnesia Resulting in Pain Relief,” 206–10.
“ZIP might be injected to try to ‘reset’ the synapses in that region”: Sacktor, “Erasing Your Memories.”
“I am somewhat hesitant”: Elie Wiesel, “Never Forget,” op-ed, New York Daily News, April 11, 2009.
“imagining the future depends”: Schacter et al., “Remembering the Past to Imagine the Future,” 657.
Reader comments in response to Sacktor interview: Sacktor, “Erasing Your Memories.”
By 2050 more than 16 million Americans will have dementia: Scommegna, “Dementia Cases Expected to Triple by 2050.”
If the molecule is available to the brain in larger amounts: Personal interview with Todd Sacktor, May 30, 2015.
“we don’t have another treatment for [Alzheimer’s]”: Smith, “A Stimulating Finding in Mild Alzheimer’s.”
DBS for memory disorders discovered via obese man: Hamani et al., “Memory Enhancement Induced by Hypothalamic/Fornix Deep Brain Stimulation,” 119–23. See also Fisher, “Psychiatrists Embrace Deep-Brain Stimulation.”
Electrode implanted in patients with Alzheimer’s: Lozano et al., “A Phase II Study of Fornix Deep Brain Stimulation,” 777–81.
9. Deep Brain Stimulation: Who Holds the Clicker?
Mario Della Grotta case: Personal interviews with Mario Della Grotta, June 2003–September 2004.
Pierre Paul Broca confirmed theory of localization in 1861: Konnikova, “The Man Who Couldn’t Speak.”
Moniz looking for suitable lobotomy patients: Gross and Schäfer, “Egas Moniz (1874–1955) and the ‘Invention’ of Modern Psychosurgery,” E8.
By the late 1950s, more than twenty thousand patients: Govan, “Lobotomy.”
Heath implanted electrodes in human beings: Hamblin, “Deep Brain Stimulation for the Soul.”
Feelings of rage, fear, pleasure vary by electrode placement: Slater, “Who Holds the Clicker?”
Heath’s treatment of a homosexual man: Heath, “Pleasure and Brain Activity in Man,” 6–9. See also Horgan, “What Are Science’s Ugliest Experiments?”
People had believed that thoughts and emotions: Sweeney, “Brain.”
Account of Delgado provoking an implanted bull: Osmundsen, “‘Matador’ with a Radio Stops Wired Bull.”
Louis Jolyon West, the Vacaville Prison, and the CIA: Martin and Caul, “Mind Control.” See also Chavkin, The Mind Readers, 13–15, 60–63, 96–109.
Implants were resurrected in 1987: Benabid et al., “Combined (Thalamotomy and Stimulation) Stereotactic Surgery of the VIM Thalamic Nucleus for Bilateral Parkinson Disease,” 344–46.
150,000 patients worldwide implanted for movement disorders: Helen Mayberg, email correspondence, June 13, 2017.
“It’s how a lot of medicine happens”: Personal interview with Jeff Arle, January 21, 2005.
“We want more than anything”: Personal interview with Helen Mayberg, January 5, 2005.
“If you can get relief without invasive surgery”: Personal interview with Harold Sackheim, February 7, 2005.
“We have searched and searched for the Holy Grail”: Personal interview with William Burke, June 17, 2003.
Remission rates of 31 percent after fourteen weeks: Insel, “Antidepressants.”
Of the 65 percent who are helped: Personal interview with John Halpern, August 19, 2016.
Between 10 and 20 p
ercent of patients never improve: Ibid.
Surgeons choose the brain targets: Personal interview with Ben Greenberg, March 13, 2005.
“We chose the anterior limb”: Personal interview with Don Malone, March 14, 2005.
Greenberg and colleagues saw a reduction of at least 25 percent: Orenstein, “Deep Brain Stimulation Helps Severe OCD.”
“In the real world, the group of patients”: Ibid.
Activity in Area 25 decreased: Mayberg et al., “Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression,” 651–60.
“acute effects” felt by Mayberg’s patients: Ibid.
Results of follow-up studies: Ibid.
Mayberg’s study in Area 25 expanding: Wrobel, “Flipping the Switch.”
Deep brain stimulation in Dutch patient: Fisher, “Psychiatrists Embrace Deep-Brain Stimulation.”
More than five hundred people around the world: Personal interview with Helen Mayberg, May 21, 2017.
“There are people falling off the boat”: Egan, “Adverse Effects.”
Americans spend billions of dollars a year: Holtzheimer and Mayberg, “Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression,” 1437–44.
Sales reps sell medications: Neighmond, “That Prescription Might Not Have Been Tested for Your Ailment.”
Freeman’s assembly-line lobotomies: Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures, 268.
“Psychosurgery cured me”: H. A. Dannecker, “Psychosurgery Cured Me,” Coronet, October 1942, cited in De Young, Madness, 225–26.
Psychosurgery patients lost what Moniz called their “vital spark”: Johnson, “A Dark History,” 367.
“We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past”: Personal interview with Ben Greenberg, March 3, 2005.
“With DBS the thing has a certain immediacy to it”: Personal interview with Steven Rasmussen, March 4, 2005.
“That’s one of the dangers”: Personal interview with Ben Greenberg, March 3, 2005.
“We don’t want hypomania”: Personal interview with Don Malone, March 4, 2005.
Cosgrove’s answer: “The doctor”: Cosgrove, “Session 6: Neuroscience, Brain, and Behavior V: Deep Brain Stimulation.”
“We don’t even know what the optimal stimulation parameters are”: Ibid.