OT: MDMA & psychological trauma

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As dawn approached on the morning of 7 October 2023, many of the partygoers at the Nova music festival near Gaza’s border took illegal recreational drugs like MDMA or LSD. Hundreds of them were high when, shortly after sunrise, Hamas gunmen attacked the site.

Now neuroscientists working with survivors from the festival say there are early signs that MDMA - also known as ecstasy or molly - may have provided some psychological protection against trauma.

The preliminary results, currently being peer-reviewed with a view to publication in the coming months, suggest that the drug is associated with more positive mental states - both during the event and in the months afterwards.

The study, carried out by scientists at Israel’s Haifa University, could contribute to a growing scientific interest in how MDMA might be used to treat psychological trauma. It is thought to be the first time scientists have been able to study a mass trauma event where large numbers of people were under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

DB2

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Fascinating, and as someone who has done MDMA and a few of the other psych substances, I am not surprised at this possibility, nor am I sold on it.

Trauma is complicated.

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Not surprising, really. I would say the drug lessens perception of the immediate trauma, making it far easier to see it as a sort-of dream, not real life.

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jerry. a big yes on yout conjecture. I perhaps see the same but from a different angle.

the drug alters perception of the immediate trauma, making it possible to take it in as real, a passage in life that is extremely difficult to accept, but must be accepted.

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On an entertainment tangent, the book (or miniseries) “The Terminal List” has as a main subplot research in a PTSD preventing drug. Good show, even better book.