A Psychedelic Solution? And I Hope You're All Paying Attention

It's been 3 years since my last cluster headache phase, leaving me with a foreboding sense that another round of headaches can't be too far off. I'm glad that I've made it this long free from them because ten years ago I could expect a cycle of headaches to appear every 15 months, give or take a few months. They're incredibly disruptive to my life, leaving me anxious as I await the next attack and leaving me somewhat tethered to an O2 tank for relief from a headache once it starts. (High doses of oxygen at the rate of 15 liters per minute can work miracles at aborting a cluster headache attack.) The search function of my blog will reveal some extensive writings I've done about my headaches, or, you can read this post from 8 years ago which will give you an idea of what they are.

Toward the end of the post I linked to above, I talk about psilocybin mushrooms and LSD and the success that's been had by the use of these psychedelics in aborting headache phases. For decades, testing with these hallucinogens for a myriad of both physical and mental health issues has been prohibited—until relatively recently. The results I'm hearing so far about their use seem promising. 

I poked my head into a cluster headache support group on Facebook a couple months ago after having been away for at least two years and was pleased to see that many of the members there were turning to "magic" mushrooms and finding success through their use. After my osteoporosis diagnosis one year ago, I'm determined to never use prednisone (the drug I used extensively as a prophylactic for cluster headaches) again as it leaches calcium from one's bones, contributing to osteoporosis. If I can find relief organically through psilocybin mushrooms, I will. 

Part of my research about psilocybin led me to the Netflix documentary How to Change Your Mind. It's a fascinating film about the use of psychedelics for treating a host of mental illness conditions in addition to a brief mention of psychedelics for treating cluster headaches.

(The blog continues below the video.)

Of course, it doesn't work for everyone but I'm willing to give it a try if it means I can avoid any additional dependence on prednisone. A good companion film to the one above is Fantastic Fungi. I found them both to be worthwhile.

I've had a few favorite bands/artists over the years: Supertramp; David Baerwald; U2, and The Bodeans. I recently came across a book about Supertramp from a Facebook group dedicated to the band. The author of the book, Tramp's Footprints, is Abel Fuentes and he's also a member of the Facebook group. Abel was offering a teaser of a few paragraphs from his writings in a post he'd made to the group. I found it interesting. I ordered the book and was more than a little surprised when it arrived to find that it was more than 700 pages with hundreds of interview quotes from members of the band as well as others within their orbit. It contained detailed information in chronological order about each of their albums as well as the individual songs that made up each record—the sort of stuff that, if you're really into a band, matters. Abel had so much commentary/quotes to work with and he did a superb job of stitching them together to tell the story of one of the best bands of the '70s, playing music with a catchy mix of rock, jazz, and blues in such a distinctive way. If you're aware of any Supertramp fans in your circle of friends, this book might make a fine gift for them!

I hope you're all paying attention to what's happening over on FOX. Not only is the network not making any mention of the trouble they're in with the $1.6B lawsuit against them by Dominion, but even more head-spinning is what their primetime host Tucker Carlson is doing with the 44,000 hours of the January 6th, 2021 insurrection video footage that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy gave him exclusive access to. 

If you thought the network's ongoing allegations of (nonexistent) election fraud appeared to have all of the hallmarks of propaganda, wait until you see how Tucker Carlson is editing the 44,000 hours of video to paint a picture of the January 6th insurrection as nothing more than a few tourists milling about. It's propaganda on a massive scale; the kind of stuff that would make Joseph Goebbels and Vladimir Putin proud. And it's the reason I keep talking about this network and other conservative media sites that are so corrosive to our democracy. They pedal in propaganda. Yes, I know that other networks have a bias but it's something entirely different to lie to your viewers, filling them full of misinformation out of fear that if you don't tell them what they want to hear, you will lose them to an even more extreme "news" source.  

Honestly, if I found out that I was being lied to by the voices I trust to help keep me informed, I'd be upset. I would also find a new source for news. 

The problem is, FOX's viewers have been conditioned to believe that anything to the left of FOX's hard-right conservative narrative isn't to be trusted. Their viewers don't appear at all interested in taking the time to listen to voices other than those who are filling them full of fear and propaganda while making them appear both ignorant and dumb. I mean, when you find that you've been lied to again and again and again (unless you never leave your bubble and Howard Kurtz can't be honest and level with you that you're being lied to) but yet you continue to tune in and trust those who have been playing you for a fool, that's on you. And we all pay the price in the form of a divided nation where a large percentage of people have totally checked out of reality. 

I recall a conversation I had with a sibling more than a year ago after having them tell me that the insurrection at our nation's Capitol wasn't what I thought it was—that it was nothing more than tourists. I responded with a video put together by the NYT where they detailed minute-by-minute how the insurrection unfolded. Their reply was "we believe different things." I've often thought about that because my sibling was right—we do believe differently. One of us is believing in the truth and one of us is believing lies. I'm not sure how else to make sense of it. I only wish we had a better relationship where we could sit down together over a beer and I could explain to them why I think they've been lied to but this sibling won't allow for that discussion. Sadly, I have little doubt that they're tuning into Tucker Carlson's show on FOX this week and feeling vindicated because Carlson is telling them what they want to hear—what they want to believe is true—that the attack on our nation's Capitol, incited by Trump, wasn't at all what my eyes saw in real-time; an attempted coup where lives were lost on one of the darkest days in our country's history.

I'll continue to speak out about the politics of our time and the threats we're facing from within because I do not want to look back years from now and see that I was silent in the face of so much misinformation and propaganda from conservatives that has made our country unrecognizable. You'll often hear people speak about our democracy as a fragile thing and not something to be taken for granted. A few years ago I might have dismissed that sentiment as just so much hyperbole and not given it much concern. I no longer think that way.

I'm trying to do my part. How about you?

That's all I've got.