1683 Shroom for Thought

Read an interesting article the other day on Magic Mushrooms. Seems scientists have determined that their psychoactive ingredient, psilocybin, may have promise as a treatment for depression.
Somehow I think I'd prefer someone driving under the influence of Prozac.
Naturally, the psilocybin would be administered under controlled circumstances. But the interesting thing about psilocybin is how it works. Scientists thought it would cause certain areas of the brain to perk up and get excited, but no. It causes a certain area of the brain to dull down—the area of the brain most responsible for grounding you in reality.
So it dampens your perceptions of reality. No surprise there, it is a hallucinogen. Hallucinations are, after all, not real. And that's where it gets really interesting. Turns out clinically depressed people are too real. They are too caught up in the depressing reality of day-to-day existence and get into negative-reinforcing depressing mental loops.
They need a flight of fancy. Which is, if you stop to think about it, all hope really is. A feeling based entirely on an illusion. Or, if you prefer, a hallucination. Scientists have shown that only one psilocybin experience a year is enough to lift the worst depressed person out of the negative cycle.
You gotta admit, it's kind of a bummer, however real, that people who are negative and depressed are more grounded in reality than us hopey-changey people. Maybe there's a middle ground.
As I've quoted before, the optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist the glass half empty. The pragmatist says we got twice a much glass as we need here. But as my friend Jada said, "The opportunist drinks the water while the rest of them are arguing."
Opportunism---hope and reality combined.
America, ya gotta love it.