Npj mental health research
February 7, 2025
Ari Brouwer, Joshua K Brown, Earth Erowid et al.
5 citations
Psychedelic therapy may work partly because of an overlooked temporal pattern: the initial 'come-up' phase often feels like an acute stress reaction, while the later 'come-down' phase brings positive feelings similar to recovery from illness or stress. A qualitative analysis of psilocybin experience reports from Erowid.org, using phenomenological, thematic content, and word frequency analysis, shows that negatively valenced states dominate the onset, and positively valenced states dominate the falling phase. This pattern helps explain how initially distressing altered states can ultimately resolve distress, with implications for therapeutic and theoretical understanding of psychedelic treatment.
Drug and alcohol dependence
November 1, 2024
Eric L Sevigny, Sylvia Thyssen, Earth Erowid et al.
5 citations
Between 1999 and 2023, 4719 samples submitted as MDMA to the DrugsData drug checking service were analyzed. While 75% of users expected their sample to contain only MDMA, only 48% actually contained MDMA alone. The proportion of MDMA-only samples declined sharply from 57.4% in 1999 to 15.2% in 2009, then recovered to 56.0% by 2017, and rose more moderately to 74.1% by 2023. Across the 25-year period, 199 unique adulterants were detected. Trends in adulterant prevalence matched those seen in law enforcement seizure data. Although more than half of MDMA samples were misrepresented in some way, MDMA quality has stabilized at relatively high levels in recent years.
Research Square (Research Square)
February 23, 2024
Ari Brouwer, Joshua K. Brown, Earth Erowid et al.
5 citations
Psychedelic therapy may work partly because its temporal structure mirrors the narrative arc of the Hero's Journey. A qualitative analysis of self-reported onset (comeup) and offset (comedown) phases of psilocybin experiences found that the comeup is more often characterized by negatively valenced feeling states, while the comedown is more often characterized by positively valenced feeling states resembling recovery from illness or adversity. This trajectory suggests that initially distressing altered states can ultimately resolve distress, offering a framework for understanding the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics.
International Conference on Web and Social Media
January 31, 2022
Angelina Mooseder, M. Malik, Hemank Lamba et al.
3 citations
A website hosting over 36,000 user-submitted drug experience reports offers a resource for studying characteristic experiences with psychoactive substances. Quantitative analysis examined how experiences such as addiction or bad trips relate to specific substances and user variables. Classifying positive and negative experiences and reported addiction using consumer, substance, context, and location information showed that objective characteristics alone poorly predict subjective experiences, but subjective reports can reveal new patterns. A positive association emerged between addiction experiences and dextromethorphan, a substance with largely unknown withdrawal effects. This research aids sociological understanding of drug consumption and demonstrates ethical use of non-mainstream social media for studying human behavior.