OCD, short for obsessive compulsive disorder, is a psychological disorder that cloaks its subjects in cyclical patterns of unwelcome thoughts and all-consuming fears. This intrusive background chatter falcons over its prey, ineluctably leading them to engage in frequent compulsive behaviors as means of satiating these mental urges. Some common behaviors coastline subjects of hygiene and spatial organization.
Truth is, for a person with OCD, the overwhelming distress these inner events cause, could never be translated on paper. Think about it this way… for the average person, walking over or passing by those wobbly, metal cellar doors on city sidewalks usually doesn’t warrant much thought. For someone with OCD though, everyday-encounters like this can be an obstacle. Like a broken record, concerns about falling through the cellar may become compulsively rehearsed in their minds. This proliferating fear cannot help, but swindle the body into choreographic motion. Here, the person with OCD engages in a ritual to compensate for their anxiety. An anonymous respondent said this…
Recent research by Dr. Francisco Moreno and colleagues from UA’s Psychiatry Department suggests that the active compound in ‘magic’ mushrooms, psilocybin, can interface with serotonin receptors in the parts of our brains that manipulate OCD manifestations. EEG images show us that individuals with OCD, experience above-average ERN brainwave patterns, associated with a comparatively high number of ruminating thoughts. Psilocybin demonstrates a sophisticated ability to reduce this brain overactivity, simultaneously diminishing the overly-scrutinizing tendencies of our OCD scripts. Increased neural plasticity is also heavily associated with these benefits. On psilocybin, our brains experience a very physical strengthening of neural connectivity. In the mind’s eye, we encounter this connectivity as an expansion of knowledge and awareness.