Working backwards from Post-MDMA depression

[nEone]

So - a lot of SWIM's friends have struggled with depression after using MDMA. Often times, the mood lingers for weeks, and a number of SWIM's friends have sworn off of the drug entirely because the depression is just too much to take.

SWIM doesn't have this problem - but it's common enough amongst his friends that he began to think about the bio/chemical process that would create that unintended result.

The theory is that the rush of good feelings essentially numbs the nerves, requiring a larger amount of serotonin in order to feel "normal".

That got SWIM thinking...could the reverse work as well?

Could a person purposely ingest something that triggered a deep and intense depressive experience - something that turned the person's world view into a black hole from which light itself could not escape...something that chemically clocked the body's serotonin receptors for four to six hours, resulting in a super-sensitizing of the pathways/neurons...so that in effect the next several weeks were a kind of anti-depression - where the normal flow of happy-feeling chemicals is felt like the dawning of a new-chance-on-life?

Does this make sense?

[Dole654]

mdma causes massive serotonin release. its not really the need to have more serotonin (ie. some sort of short term tolerence), but rather the need for the body to build more serotonin to have the same effect as before.

[nEone]

Not sure that this should really have been moved - yes, the inspiration was MDMA - but the question is about whether achieving the opposite result is possible by implementing an "anti-MDMA" (which SWIM has no idea if such a thing even exists).

The experience of MDMA that SWIM's friends have had is: 4-6 hours of intensely pleasurable, content, empathogenic feelings followed by approximately a week of depression.

The experience that SWIM wonders about is taking "Substance X" and going through 4-6 hours of deep depression, followed by a period of enhanced baseline mood.

Obviously - Substance X isn't MDMA.

This was posted in "some for all" because it was meant more as a philosophical pondering.

But whatever.

[RaverHippie]

The "week of depression following use" is easily avoidable though...

[nEone]

That's true. But not my point.

My question isn't how to better use MDMA.

My question is if it's possible to take advantage of the body's chemical/neurological adjustments in pursuit of long-term mood enhancement by taking something whose immediate action is the opposite of MDMA.

Maybe I'm not being clear with the thought-experiment that I have been going over in my head. Or maybe it's just a dumb idea.

[RaverHippie]

In your case, I don't think there's anything that can suddenly create an absence of serotonin for 4-6 hours then respond by building up a huge store of serotonin. Just having a large amount of serotonin doesn't really have much an effect, your can try this for yourself by taking a regimen of 5HTP.