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Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
A groundbreaking and revelatory history of our major psychotropic drugs, from "a thoroughly exhilarating and entertaining writer" (Washington Post).
Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, we still don't know exactly how or why these drugs work--or don't work--on what ails our brains. Blue Dreams offers the explosive story of the discovery, invention, people, and science behind our licensed narcotics, as told by a riveting writer and psychologist who shares her own intimate experience with the highs and lows of psychiatry's drugs.
Lauren Slater's account ranges from the earliest, Thorazine and lithium, up through Prozac and other antidepressants, as well as Ecstasy, "magic mushrooms," the most cutting-edge memory drugs, and even neural implants. Along the way, she narrates the history of psychiatry itself, illuminating the imprint its colorful little capsules have left on millions of brains worldwide, and demonstrating how these wonder drugs may heal us or hurt us.
Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, we still don't know exactly how or why these drugs work--or don't work--on what ails our brains. Blue Dreams offers the explosive story of the discovery, invention, people, and science behind our licensed narcotics, as told by a riveting writer and psychologist who shares her own intimate experience with the highs and lows of psychiatry's drugs.
Lauren Slater's account ranges from the earliest, Thorazine and lithium, up through Prozac and other antidepressants, as well as Ecstasy, "magic mushrooms," the most cutting-edge memory drugs, and even neural implants. Along the way, she narrates the history of psychiatry itself, illuminating the imprint its colorful little capsules have left on millions of brains worldwide, and demonstrating how these wonder drugs may heal us or hurt us.
399 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2018
158 people are currently reading
2975 people want to read
About the author
Lauren Slater
21 books207 followersLauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychotherapist and writer.
She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals.
Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle, among others. She has been nominated several times for National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile category.
Slater was a practicing psychotherapist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical and then the Executive Director of AfterCare Services, and under her watch the company grew from a small inner city office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of Boston’s most socioeconomically stressed population.
After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman’s Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.
She lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.
She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals.
Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle, among others. She has been nominated several times for National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile category.
Slater was a practicing psychotherapist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical and then the Executive Director of AfterCare Services, and under her watch the company grew from a small inner city office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of Boston’s most socioeconomically stressed population.
After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman’s Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.
She lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
March 8, 2018
This book does a couple of things very well. First, it gives an excellent background on the history of psychiatric medicine and at the same time shows, more than it tells, just how hit and miss our use of psychotropic medications are. These drugs are dangerous and while they work for some, they certainly also come with a price.
My wife and I are currently living daily with the price she paid for her psychiatric meds and I can guarantee that the cost would have been significantly less if I had known what is in this book. These drugs aren't penicillin curing a bacterial infection or insulin stabilizing a diabetic. These drugs change how our brains interact with the world. Once you see that variable -- the drug versus the outside world -- then you realize just how tenuous the efficacy of these drugs can be.
The future of the psychiatric meds appears to be therapy-based hallucinogenics, as long as the political forces can be prevailed upon to allow this important work. This isn't get high and have fun, it is get high and get well, as opposed to the current slate of SSRIs and AAPs that don't even get you particularly euphoric and damage your brain. I wrote about that a little here.
My wife and I are currently living daily with the price she paid for her psychiatric meds and I can guarantee that the cost would have been significantly less if I had known what is in this book. These drugs aren't penicillin curing a bacterial infection or insulin stabilizing a diabetic. These drugs change how our brains interact with the world. Once you see that variable -- the drug versus the outside world -- then you realize just how tenuous the efficacy of these drugs can be.
The future of the psychiatric meds appears to be therapy-based hallucinogenics, as long as the political forces can be prevailed upon to allow this important work. This isn't get high and have fun, it is get high and get well, as opposed to the current slate of SSRIs and AAPs that don't even get you particularly euphoric and damage your brain. I wrote about that a little here.
March 27, 2018
There's a lot to like in this book; Slater's a psychologist and an experienced writer, so her history of medical treatments used to treat mental health is informative without being overly technical, comprehensive, and efficient. She's fair-minded, paying attention to the ways in which treatments have made the difference between people having lives outside of institutions, and also addressing the downsides (serious side effects, increased tolerance for medicine, etc.). Given that she also has a thirty-year history of mental illness and has been both institutionalized and been prescribed many medications, I admired her fair-mindedness all the more: she included her experience with treatments as it was relevant (the book is organized according to the kinds of treatments, going in rough historical order), but her experience did not dominate the discussion. I learned a lot from the discussion.
But the book's last third made me uncomfortable. I want to be clear that I understand that for folks with mental illness medical treatment, particularly prescription drugs, can be important and can make the difference between having a meaningful, autonomous life and not. But Slater's recounting of some of the ways in which the treatment of her mental illness has clearly shortened and damaged her life in the process of giving her a life outside of institutions gave me pause. (She's in her early fifties and has several medical conditions--obesity, diabetes, memory problems, blood pressure problems--that she can trace pretty directly back to the medications she takes. Her midlife divorce, she believes, is also partly due to the personality and sex drive changes of her SSRI use.) But the final third of the book focuses on newer avenues of exploration--using drugs like LSD, Ecstasy, or Ketamine in small occasional doses. Her discussion in these chapters seemed eerily like the tones of the prior chapters, where unending scientific optimism is eventually complicated by a depressing reality of drugs' only moderate effectiveness, sometimes only temporary, and even then coming with side effects. It was hard for me to reconcile the realism of her scrutiny of the past with her unchecked optimism about a medical future. This is particularly the case because her one chapter devoted to what she groups as 'placebos' (essentially, mental-not-physical treatments of mental illness: talk therapy, touch or massage, meditation) demonstrated that they have as good a reputation for effectiveness for at least some forms of mental illness, and no side effects. I absolutely recognize that for severe mental illness these treatments wouldn't have much effect, but given that the population taking drugs for mental disorders has greatly increased since the early 90s, the final part of the book just made me uncomfortable. To be clear, it's still overall a valuable and well-written book, and I do recommend it.
But the book's last third made me uncomfortable. I want to be clear that I understand that for folks with mental illness medical treatment, particularly prescription drugs, can be important and can make the difference between having a meaningful, autonomous life and not. But Slater's recounting of some of the ways in which the treatment of her mental illness has clearly shortened and damaged her life in the process of giving her a life outside of institutions gave me pause. (She's in her early fifties and has several medical conditions--obesity, diabetes, memory problems, blood pressure problems--that she can trace pretty directly back to the medications she takes. Her midlife divorce, she believes, is also partly due to the personality and sex drive changes of her SSRI use.) But the final third of the book focuses on newer avenues of exploration--using drugs like LSD, Ecstasy, or Ketamine in small occasional doses. Her discussion in these chapters seemed eerily like the tones of the prior chapters, where unending scientific optimism is eventually complicated by a depressing reality of drugs' only moderate effectiveness, sometimes only temporary, and even then coming with side effects. It was hard for me to reconcile the realism of her scrutiny of the past with her unchecked optimism about a medical future. This is particularly the case because her one chapter devoted to what she groups as 'placebos' (essentially, mental-not-physical treatments of mental illness: talk therapy, touch or massage, meditation) demonstrated that they have as good a reputation for effectiveness for at least some forms of mental illness, and no side effects. I absolutely recognize that for severe mental illness these treatments wouldn't have much effect, but given that the population taking drugs for mental disorders has greatly increased since the early 90s, the final part of the book just made me uncomfortable. To be clear, it's still overall a valuable and well-written book, and I do recommend it.
April 19, 2018
Liked: history and science of psychoactive drugs. First person descriptions of being on various drugs and of symptoms of mental illness.
Disliked: massive speculation about efficacy of particular treatments (very down on SSRIs despite self-described decades of benefit; very excited about hallucinogens despite never trying them and thin evidence).
Disliked: massive speculation about efficacy of particular treatments (very down on SSRIs despite self-described decades of benefit; very excited about hallucinogens despite never trying them and thin evidence).
February 15, 2019
Let me save you the trouble reading this one.
The author is a long-time beneficiary of modern psychiatry pharmaceuticals which have, according to her own words, given her life back to her and allowed her to live a happy life for decades that would have otherwise been lost to mental illness.
Despite this, she has an axe to grind with Big Pharma who produced the compounds that helped her because she is still dependent on those compounds and they weren't a permanent cure. She believes that they are only in it to extract every penny they can from the mentally ill.
She wraps up the book with her ideal world as she sees it unfolding with the widespread use of psychedelic drugs administered by modern day shaman (her words, not mine) in controlled settings that would, after several treatments, coupled with intense personal reflection, help make sense of the traumas that have led to or resulted from mental illness and become the permanent cure.
The reason I dislike this book so much is that the author uses tons of research and facts (which I truly love and appeal to my analytical side so much) but intermingles them with opinion, conjecture and sometimes outright fantasy in such a way as to make it difficult to tell when she's transition between the various writing modes.
This leaves the reader with the very easy opportunity to mistake some of her, shall we say "less grounded information", as being on par with some of her excellent research.
Read this book only as a master course in obfuscation of the facts towards a particular end goal.
The author is a long-time beneficiary of modern psychiatry pharmaceuticals which have, according to her own words, given her life back to her and allowed her to live a happy life for decades that would have otherwise been lost to mental illness.
Despite this, she has an axe to grind with Big Pharma who produced the compounds that helped her because she is still dependent on those compounds and they weren't a permanent cure. She believes that they are only in it to extract every penny they can from the mentally ill.
She wraps up the book with her ideal world as she sees it unfolding with the widespread use of psychedelic drugs administered by modern day shaman (her words, not mine) in controlled settings that would, after several treatments, coupled with intense personal reflection, help make sense of the traumas that have led to or resulted from mental illness and become the permanent cure.
The reason I dislike this book so much is that the author uses tons of research and facts (which I truly love and appeal to my analytical side so much) but intermingles them with opinion, conjecture and sometimes outright fantasy in such a way as to make it difficult to tell when she's transition between the various writing modes.
This leaves the reader with the very easy opportunity to mistake some of her, shall we say "less grounded information", as being on par with some of her excellent research.
Read this book only as a master course in obfuscation of the facts towards a particular end goal.
March 18, 2018
This is a solid 3 star book. I was really interested in reading this after hearing the author interviewed however the boom takes detours I was underwhelmed by. The chapters on psychedelics, ecstasy and deep brain stimulation felt like a distraction. The SSRI chapter was probably the best. The book was the most interesting when she was writing about her own accounts. The researched sections suffered from a lack of editing by dragging on and on. In sum, the book is a good reminder of just how little we know about psychiatry and mental illness.
January 19, 2025
Lauren Slater is a psychotherapist-turned-writer who's also experienced mental health issues throughout her life, for which she's received both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions. In 2018's Blue Dreams, she sets out to explore the scientific and sociologic history of psychoactive drugs. While the first half of the book covers FDA-approved drugs like lithium and Prozac (fluoxetine) as well as earlier non-pharmacologic interventions like lobotomy and electroconvulsive therapy, the second half covers experimental drugs and procedures like ecstacy, psilocybin, and deep brain stimulation, with Slater painting a very rosy picture of the latter. Slater also mentions many times how her health has been negatively impacted by her lifelong regimen of FDA-approved drugs (including complications like excess body weight, diabetes, and cognitive impairment), which to her probably makes these unknown and experimental treatments seem much more appealing. It definitely felt like the balance of this book was off.
Further reading:
How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough by Walter Brown
The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live by Heather Armstrong - a modern-day patient memoir of electroconvulsive therapy
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin, MD
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich
My statistics:
Book 20 for 2025
Book 1946 cumulatively
Further reading:
How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough by Walter Brown
The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live by Heather Armstrong - a modern-day patient memoir of electroconvulsive therapy
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin, MD
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich
My statistics:
Book 20 for 2025
Book 1946 cumulatively
August 30, 2018
A few years ago, I read the author's first book, Prozac Diary, which left me oddly dissatisfied. I was interested in her almost miraculous response to Prozac, after what she described as a decade of repeated hospitalizations, self-harming and eating disordered behavior, but I also found myself wondering if Prozac would really be her savior for the long haul. I ended my review of that book wishing her well, but wondering if she would still be singing Prozac's effects today....
When this book appeared on my kindle daily deals last weekend, I saw that I would get my answer, as well as Slaters' research and philosophical ideas about psychiatry. And of course, I had to snap this book up. On the whole, I would say it was an interesting read. (As I keep mentioning in my reviews, to me, a three star review is not negative...it means "I liked it!") Long story short, no, Prozac alone has not maintained Slater on her path to mental health. She has had to switch up drugs, and add new medicines to the mix (such as the anti-psychotic Zyprexa), which have kept her stable mentally, even as her physical health has taken a nosedive.
What I liked most about this book is how Slater has managed to stay objective in her discussion, as much as possible considering her own personal history. The first half of the book was fascinating. Despite how many books I've read on this topic, I still learned quite a few new facts, and I found her own personal experience to be a very interesting counterpoint. The second half of the book, which delved into psychedelic drugs and neural implants, was less interesting to me. In addition, I have to admit that occasionally I struggled with the author's writing style, which was quite flowery and poetic (too much so for my tastes).
Overall, despite my quibbles, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in psychiatry or mental health. Slater definitely has some interesting things to say on the topic, and I did appreciate her perspective as someone who has been a long-term patient/mental health sufferer, and not just some random journalist or therapist with an axe to grind.
When this book appeared on my kindle daily deals last weekend, I saw that I would get my answer, as well as Slaters' research and philosophical ideas about psychiatry. And of course, I had to snap this book up. On the whole, I would say it was an interesting read. (As I keep mentioning in my reviews, to me, a three star review is not negative...it means "I liked it!") Long story short, no, Prozac alone has not maintained Slater on her path to mental health. She has had to switch up drugs, and add new medicines to the mix (such as the anti-psychotic Zyprexa), which have kept her stable mentally, even as her physical health has taken a nosedive.
What I liked most about this book is how Slater has managed to stay objective in her discussion, as much as possible considering her own personal history. The first half of the book was fascinating. Despite how many books I've read on this topic, I still learned quite a few new facts, and I found her own personal experience to be a very interesting counterpoint. The second half of the book, which delved into psychedelic drugs and neural implants, was less interesting to me. In addition, I have to admit that occasionally I struggled with the author's writing style, which was quite flowery and poetic (too much so for my tastes).
Overall, despite my quibbles, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in psychiatry or mental health. Slater definitely has some interesting things to say on the topic, and I did appreciate her perspective as someone who has been a long-term patient/mental health sufferer, and not just some random journalist or therapist with an axe to grind.
February 15, 2019
1) This is shockingly bad writing. (Think of a clever high school kid writing a persuasive essay)
2) It is often inaccurate. (I can't even... it's one thing to write in layman's terms that can be widely understood, it's another to just confuse your opinions and anecdotes with actual facts.) I have 7 years of biochemistry under my belt so I feel like I am fair here. It is possible to write about complex subjects for a general audience, but she clearly doesn't have that skill.
3) It is the single most biased piece of writing on pharmacology I have ever read. I have no idea how it got so many good reviews. (How dare they offer me medicine that I willingly take and benefit from... because it has side effects!) Has she not heard of RISK/BENEFIT RATIO? Personal responsibility? Big Pharma is her constant scapegoat. But nobody is making much money off the SSRIs these days, which are almost all generic and very inexpensive. I'm not defending Big Pharma, but to blame them for everything is wrong and unhelpful.
Having taken both many psychedelics and many anti-depressants myself, I think its fair to say they both can be amazing and effective drugs. Will they cure everybody's everything with regard to mental illness. Nope.
And guess what? Eventually we will find out that implants, procedures and psychedelics also have some negative consequences (side effects) or are ineffective for many people. Just like all drugs.
IF YOU WANT TO READ A GOOD BOOK ABOUT THE STORY AND SCIENCE OF DRUGS, read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
2) It is often inaccurate. (I can't even... it's one thing to write in layman's terms that can be widely understood, it's another to just confuse your opinions and anecdotes with actual facts.) I have 7 years of biochemistry under my belt so I feel like I am fair here. It is possible to write about complex subjects for a general audience, but she clearly doesn't have that skill.
3) It is the single most biased piece of writing on pharmacology I have ever read. I have no idea how it got so many good reviews. (How dare they offer me medicine that I willingly take and benefit from... because it has side effects!) Has she not heard of RISK/BENEFIT RATIO? Personal responsibility? Big Pharma is her constant scapegoat. But nobody is making much money off the SSRIs these days, which are almost all generic and very inexpensive. I'm not defending Big Pharma, but to blame them for everything is wrong and unhelpful.
Having taken both many psychedelics and many anti-depressants myself, I think its fair to say they both can be amazing and effective drugs. Will they cure everybody's everything with regard to mental illness. Nope.
And guess what? Eventually we will find out that implants, procedures and psychedelics also have some negative consequences (side effects) or are ineffective for many people. Just like all drugs.
IF YOU WANT TO READ A GOOD BOOK ABOUT THE STORY AND SCIENCE OF DRUGS, read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
June 9, 2018
I’m pleased to say that I have zero first hand experience with prescription psychiatric meds. They seem like a shadowy world to which I have a tough time relating. But the author has decades of intimate knowledge, and uses that experience in weaving the stories of the development of various top-selling meds with her own needs and desires.
This started off well, with a description of Thorazine, MOAIs and Prozac, then got a little slow in the part on psilocybin, then picked up again with the stuff on MDMA, and then slowed again for the section on brain electrostimulation. The book did hold my interest throughout although I felt some parts were a bit more poetic than factual. It does lay bare how politically fused and financially driven the prescription drug game really is. If this book is to be believed, then I’m shocked to think how many people must be walking around medicated all the time.
This started off well, with a description of Thorazine, MOAIs and Prozac, then got a little slow in the part on psilocybin, then picked up again with the stuff on MDMA, and then slowed again for the section on brain electrostimulation. The book did hold my interest throughout although I felt some parts were a bit more poetic than factual. It does lay bare how politically fused and financially driven the prescription drug game really is. If this book is to be believed, then I’m shocked to think how many people must be walking around medicated all the time.
March 18, 2018
An extraordinary book, and one that left me with so many questions and so much desperation over the fact that, big pharma has once again determined the course of treatment for millions of people with various mental disorders, while all along crushing medicine that stands in the way of profits, and in its wake leaving those same millions of people suffering unnecessarily, denying them potential cure.
It's a sobering account of the state of our mental health inadequacy and the horror it causes daily.
It's a sobering account of the state of our mental health inadequacy and the horror it causes daily.
November 24, 2018
I was at a party in the 90s when I was sitting at a table with 7 people and there were only two people there who weren't on an SSRI. We found this hilarious at the time and did run downs of what we'd taken and for how long. Now I wonder how profoundly these drugs have shaped the last twenty years of my life. I have tried to go off of them but they can be a bitch to come off of which tends to convince one that it is proof that they are needed. Lauren Slater talks about the mass experiment going on with these drugs and with no effort to study us, the subjects, and the ways in which our brains have been altered under psychopharmacology. The side effects are not incidental. Like Michael Pollan, she sees hope in the use of psychedelics as a positive turn in the treatment of depression and one that does not leave a patient addicted to drugs or with any side effects. There were times in this book where I got a little tired of Slater's personal story, but as an overview of the use of these drugs, it was excellent and very well written.
April 15, 2018
Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
by Clinical Psychologist and best selling author of Prozac Diary, Dr. Lauren Slater, is a fascinating history of psychopharmacology told with scientific rigour along with the empathic recounting of the author’s own experiences. I enjoyed the chapters on antidepressants and on placebos but the chapters that really blew me away were the ones on psychedelics. Reading these chapters on MDMA and Psilocybins made me cautiously optimistic that a breakthrough for treating mental illness may be in our not too distant future. At times, the book got a little long winded, but overall I recommend this important book for anyone wanting a better understanding of treating mental illness.
With gratitude to Dr. Slater for this important book and bringing empathy to a subject that is still too often stigmatized. Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ebook Advanced Readers Copy.
by Clinical Psychologist and best selling author of Prozac Diary, Dr. Lauren Slater, is a fascinating history of psychopharmacology told with scientific rigour along with the empathic recounting of the author’s own experiences. I enjoyed the chapters on antidepressants and on placebos but the chapters that really blew me away were the ones on psychedelics. Reading these chapters on MDMA and Psilocybins made me cautiously optimistic that a breakthrough for treating mental illness may be in our not too distant future. At times, the book got a little long winded, but overall I recommend this important book for anyone wanting a better understanding of treating mental illness.
With gratitude to Dr. Slater for this important book and bringing empathy to a subject that is still too often stigmatized. Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ebook Advanced Readers Copy.
March 17, 2018
Absolutely terrifying. Hard to imagine that our powerful psychotropic drugs can be so ineffective and misused. I found the section on placebos to be especially scary.
June 3, 2022
I give this book about a 4.25 stars rating.
I quite enjoyed her review of the history of psychiatric medications. I did, however, find her obvious excitement about the potential future use of psychotropic drugs in psychiatric treatment to be a bit off-putting. In her excitement regarding possible personal benefits, I feel that the potential benefits were dwelt on without an equal attention to potential harmful effects. No drug is perfect and there usually is a whole host of potential side effects to be navigated. I doubt that psychotropics will be the wonder drugs that solve all our problems.
Her bias in favor of psychotropic drugs shows even more clearly when she (rightfully) comes down pretty hard on the concerning ways that deep brain stimulation therapy can swerve dangerously close to mind control… and yet she doesn’t seem to acknowledge the ways that psychotropic drugs can dramatically change someone’s view of the world might also be problematic. Nor does she address at all the incongruity of helping schizophrenics overcome their hallucinations while actively encouraging hallucinations with certain psychotropic drugs. We don’t really understand how the brain works… is it really so wise to purposefully create hallucinations we can’t really control?
Other than raising my eyebrow at her (in my opinion) over-enthusiastic support for psychotropic drugs as psychiatric treatment, I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about psychiatric medications along with getting a good dose of history. It would have been really nice to have know about this book and to have enjoyed it while I was still working as a psychiatric nurse. I think the knowledge within would have done a lot to help me as I grew accustomed to working in an unfamiliar field of nursing.
I quite enjoyed her review of the history of psychiatric medications. I did, however, find her obvious excitement about the potential future use of psychotropic drugs in psychiatric treatment to be a bit off-putting. In her excitement regarding possible personal benefits, I feel that the potential benefits were dwelt on without an equal attention to potential harmful effects. No drug is perfect and there usually is a whole host of potential side effects to be navigated. I doubt that psychotropics will be the wonder drugs that solve all our problems.
Her bias in favor of psychotropic drugs shows even more clearly when she (rightfully) comes down pretty hard on the concerning ways that deep brain stimulation therapy can swerve dangerously close to mind control… and yet she doesn’t seem to acknowledge the ways that psychotropic drugs can dramatically change someone’s view of the world might also be problematic. Nor does she address at all the incongruity of helping schizophrenics overcome their hallucinations while actively encouraging hallucinations with certain psychotropic drugs. We don’t really understand how the brain works… is it really so wise to purposefully create hallucinations we can’t really control?
Other than raising my eyebrow at her (in my opinion) over-enthusiastic support for psychotropic drugs as psychiatric treatment, I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about psychiatric medications along with getting a good dose of history. It would have been really nice to have know about this book and to have enjoyed it while I was still working as a psychiatric nurse. I think the knowledge within would have done a lot to help me as I grew accustomed to working in an unfamiliar field of nursing.
May 31, 2019
Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs That Changed Our Minds by Lauren Slater (Little, Brown & Co. 2018) (615.788). This is about the history and development of psychotropic and psychiatric medications. From the earliest compounds that were observed to affect behavior (Lithium, the tricyclics) to the breakthrough of Thorazine through the antidepressants to the current drugs favored by the medical establishment (Prozac, Wellbutrin, etc.), author Lauren Slater introduces them all. Slater has a great familiarity with the subject, for not only is she a psychologist, she has also been taking psychotropic medications theraputically for years.
In the last third of the book, our author considers the future of psychotropic drugs. She also presents a well-reasoned overview of the return to the academic and laboratory fold of the most popular hallucinogenic compounds of the 1960's (LSD, psilocybin, and ketamine) through the year 2000 (MDMA).
Is the author too close to her subject? Maybe, but I appreciated her first-hand perspective of the drugs she was addressing. My rating: 7/10, finished 5/30/19.
In the last third of the book, our author considers the future of psychotropic drugs. She also presents a well-reasoned overview of the return to the academic and laboratory fold of the most popular hallucinogenic compounds of the 1960's (LSD, psilocybin, and ketamine) through the year 2000 (MDMA).
Is the author too close to her subject? Maybe, but I appreciated her first-hand perspective of the drugs she was addressing. My rating: 7/10, finished 5/30/19.
March 30, 2018
This was a fascinating mix of autobiography and nonfiction focusing on the history of treatment of mental illness and depression in particular. The author is forthcoming about her own history of depression and obsessive compulsive disorder and the cost her treatment exacts on her health. She is also a smart and coherent researcher with a personable writing persona. I hate “social science case study style” for lack of a better term. This book avoids that cold wanna-be science-speak style while also avoiding an overly casual or slangy approach. I enjoyed this book throughly and learned a lot from it.
January 10, 2020
Ms Slater does an excellent job of mixing personal anecdotes with meticulous research.
Her chapter on placebos is unbelievable, though well documented. Unbelievable in that it's making me think about many things and rearranging some thought processes and behaviors.
Her chapter on placebos is unbelievable, though well documented. Unbelievable in that it's making me think about many things and rearranging some thought processes and behaviors.
March 2, 2020
Very informative book I like that the author's also also a patient and has first hand experience with what she is talking about but once again it's informative there's nothing really groundbreaking in it That's the reason I give it three stars I would recommend this to people
June 3, 2023
This is a hard one to review. Where do I start and how do I explain? I guess start by saying that there is a wealth of information to take in and truly contemplate. I found myself going back and forth from “she is so right” to “I really don’t think so” throughout. The author is in the unique position of being a psychiatrist who has been on many different SSRIs and SSNRIs. I do know that whatever is being done now for mental health could sure use improvement. It’s as though we got to a certain point of progress, then stopped trying. I’m very hopeful that new progress will be made now that they are allowing trials with psychedelics and healthier, more promising drugs again!
Want to read
October 28, 2018NY Times review:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/bo...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/bo...
February 19, 2020
Excellent companion book to Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind", "Ten Drugs", and to some extent "The Body Keeps the Score". Combines the personal experiences of the author with science and true stories about successes and failures. Blows the lid off the psychopharmacology makers' claims and explains the frustrating history of scientific research and government overreactions that have hindered advances in mental health treatments.
December 29, 2021
This started off promising but descended into a weird rant against SSRIs and antidepressants which as someone who has taken them for 5 years, I found tiring. While some of the research around psychedelics is really cool, we’re a long way away from them being prescribed to people commonly and I think the author is conflating her personal experience with what she wishes it was like. I don’t have a huge amount of love for Big Pharma but my antidepressants saved my life and allow me to function on a day to day basis. What I find disingenuous about this book is that the author had the same experience as me for 30 years and seems to resent still being on them. We’ve yet to find a cure for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses but there is no doubt that the medications that we have developed have saved the lives of millions of people. Resenting being on lifelong medication is an entirely valid point of view but conflating that with this idea that Prozac has failed because it hasn’t cured depression is weird and only adds to stigma. A disappointing read.
July 2, 2018
Some books are just not as good as you want them to be. This one is in agreement with most of modern ideas of consciousness. Essentially our DNA sets us on a path to gathering information from our environment as quickly as possible, particularly while we are dreaming. Then the protein phenotype created by this initiating genotype state takes over to collapse all of the incoming probability waves of our world in order to construct our personal reality stage on which our life narrative unfolds in such a way as to be satisfying to our needs for "redemption". All kinds of obstacles lie along this path as we try to unfold it for others in a way that they will be able to reinforce with their accommodating nods and verbal affirmations. Nothing to it.
June 10, 2018
A selective history of psychopharmacology and a bit of memoir, this beautifully written book was fascinating--and sometimes frightening. While mind-altering drugs for mental health issues are commonplace today, a biological basis for mental illness was barely conceived of as recently as the 1950's. The scary thing is that we still have no biological basis, test, or idea for identifying why mental illness occurs nor how the drugs taken to combat it actually work.
May 23, 2019
I can’t write for shit anymore, but here is my review of “Blue Dreams, The Science and the Story of the Drugs That Changed Our Minds”.
It’s an easy read. Her resources were usually in the notes, but not always, after I did some research of my own, I decided to trust her a little bit and enjoy it. She starts with antipsychotic drugs. This topic was really interesting. She dived into the history of when and how they were discovered. Then she talks about lithium and bipolar. That was fun. Next came the SSRI’s which I would have loved more physiology so I left the chapter mildly disappointed. She redeemed herself when she got into the psychedelics. This and deep brain stimulation lit a fire up my ass to do more research. I was most impressed with the idea of ecstasy being given to PTSD patients. Psychedelics would be a scary form of treatment for anyone having had trauma but with MDMA oxytocin helps give positive feelings to bad memories. It is a safe way to confront trauma, if put in the right environment of course. It sounds like serious trials are being done with optimistic results. Having worked with seriously traumatized patients, this new idea brings new much needed hope. Psychedelics seem to be where the future is at. I should mention, best results were shown when psychedelics were combined with “talk therapy”. Interesting enough though, they are what shamans and indigenous tribes have been using for hundreds of years.
Deep brain stimulation was another eye opener for me. Researchers are doing trial studies on patients who have failed at all other forms of treatment. They put electrodes in the volunteers’ brains to give a constant current doing God knows what but for one reason or the other works on some people. In other people it makes symptoms worse or creates weird mind blowing effects like, euphoria, cutting, binge eating, mania, anger, or deep sadness. It’s a trial and error procedure. The neuro surgeon can control the current, and wax or wane symptoms. Seems like we have some ethical dilemmas to work through for that one. Same with memory erasing medication for PTSD, and addiction. Why don’t we have philosophy in schools when we need philosophers now to help us rationalize these issues? We have windows and doors into the soul of our minds and hearts, yet we still have so far to go. So many volunteers to mess up on before we figure it out. If only society talked more openly about their depressions and anxieties, maybe we would get somewhere faster, rather than beating around the bush for a million years. Anyway, she also talks about placebos, and nocebo’s. Is the power of belief real life magic? That’s something else the shamans figured out well before us too. Maybe religions can have a power we should utilize? Placebos have been shown to work surprisingly well, for good, and for bad. So, overall, more than anything, this book is a good discussion piece, and a fun and interesting read.
It’s an easy read. Her resources were usually in the notes, but not always, after I did some research of my own, I decided to trust her a little bit and enjoy it. She starts with antipsychotic drugs. This topic was really interesting. She dived into the history of when and how they were discovered. Then she talks about lithium and bipolar. That was fun. Next came the SSRI’s which I would have loved more physiology so I left the chapter mildly disappointed. She redeemed herself when she got into the psychedelics. This and deep brain stimulation lit a fire up my ass to do more research. I was most impressed with the idea of ecstasy being given to PTSD patients. Psychedelics would be a scary form of treatment for anyone having had trauma but with MDMA oxytocin helps give positive feelings to bad memories. It is a safe way to confront trauma, if put in the right environment of course. It sounds like serious trials are being done with optimistic results. Having worked with seriously traumatized patients, this new idea brings new much needed hope. Psychedelics seem to be where the future is at. I should mention, best results were shown when psychedelics were combined with “talk therapy”. Interesting enough though, they are what shamans and indigenous tribes have been using for hundreds of years.
Deep brain stimulation was another eye opener for me. Researchers are doing trial studies on patients who have failed at all other forms of treatment. They put electrodes in the volunteers’ brains to give a constant current doing God knows what but for one reason or the other works on some people. In other people it makes symptoms worse or creates weird mind blowing effects like, euphoria, cutting, binge eating, mania, anger, or deep sadness. It’s a trial and error procedure. The neuro surgeon can control the current, and wax or wane symptoms. Seems like we have some ethical dilemmas to work through for that one. Same with memory erasing medication for PTSD, and addiction. Why don’t we have philosophy in schools when we need philosophers now to help us rationalize these issues? We have windows and doors into the soul of our minds and hearts, yet we still have so far to go. So many volunteers to mess up on before we figure it out. If only society talked more openly about their depressions and anxieties, maybe we would get somewhere faster, rather than beating around the bush for a million years. Anyway, she also talks about placebos, and nocebo’s. Is the power of belief real life magic? That’s something else the shamans figured out well before us too. Maybe religions can have a power we should utilize? Placebos have been shown to work surprisingly well, for good, and for bad. So, overall, more than anything, this book is a good discussion piece, and a fun and interesting read.
May 7, 2018
This is a truly fascinating and excellent book by the author who also wrote another favorite of mine, OPENING SKINNER'S BOX. I picked BLUE DREAMS up because my mother-in-law suffers from dementia (and now related psychosis) and has moved beyond non-pharmacological solutions, so I wanted to learn more about the psychotropic drugs that are out there. Slater combines personal memoir, history of science, and cultural critique in looking at conditions as varied as depression, bipolar condition, schizophrenia, OCD, and autism, and finds good and bad news.
One of the most discouraging bits of bad news is how little is still understood about what causes our brains to go wrong. Before I read this book I thought depression, for example, was a "chemical imbalance." Turns out that's not true. There isn't any consistency to levels of neurotransmitters and mental illness. You can find schizophrenics with high dopamine or low dopamine. You can find depressives with high serotonin or low serotonin. But once you introduce a drug that ups the level or receptivity to certain neurotransmitters, then you have *created* a chemical imbalance, and a new, genuine problem to be fixed down the road. Not knowing exactly what causes mental illness means you can't just point at something in a blood test or x-ray and say, "Ah-ha! We see exactly what's going wrong." So you throw drugs at it, trying each one in turn at different dosages. And, even when you find one that seems to help, the body eventually tolerates it and the cycle begins again. Ugh.
The drugs also have some heavy side effects. No one has studied long-term effects of psychotropic drugs. Nor do most of them out-perform a placebo when tested double-blind. Slater points out that the placebo effect is actually a great thing--our brain healing itself! How could we maximize this natural ability to fool ourselves into getting well? (Sadly, the placebo effect doesn't work on Alzheimer's patients because they don't remember that they took something that will supposedly make them well, and they can't imagine a future in which they are "better.")
On the plus side, for whatever reasons, oftentimes a drug will "help" for a certain period of time, and if you struggle just to function, this bargain sounds worthwhile. A window of time is better than nothing.
More promising might be little electrical stimulators placed at positions in the brain (though even the doctors doing this surgery can't be very precise and tend to have "favorite places") and clinical use of psychedelic drugs. I think Michael Pollan has just come out with a book about psychedelic drugs and their new uses as well, but, not knowing his mental history, I only hope people will read Slater's for its personal street cred and thoroughness.
One of the most discouraging bits of bad news is how little is still understood about what causes our brains to go wrong. Before I read this book I thought depression, for example, was a "chemical imbalance." Turns out that's not true. There isn't any consistency to levels of neurotransmitters and mental illness. You can find schizophrenics with high dopamine or low dopamine. You can find depressives with high serotonin or low serotonin. But once you introduce a drug that ups the level or receptivity to certain neurotransmitters, then you have *created* a chemical imbalance, and a new, genuine problem to be fixed down the road. Not knowing exactly what causes mental illness means you can't just point at something in a blood test or x-ray and say, "Ah-ha! We see exactly what's going wrong." So you throw drugs at it, trying each one in turn at different dosages. And, even when you find one that seems to help, the body eventually tolerates it and the cycle begins again. Ugh.
The drugs also have some heavy side effects. No one has studied long-term effects of psychotropic drugs. Nor do most of them out-perform a placebo when tested double-blind. Slater points out that the placebo effect is actually a great thing--our brain healing itself! How could we maximize this natural ability to fool ourselves into getting well? (Sadly, the placebo effect doesn't work on Alzheimer's patients because they don't remember that they took something that will supposedly make them well, and they can't imagine a future in which they are "better.")
On the plus side, for whatever reasons, oftentimes a drug will "help" for a certain period of time, and if you struggle just to function, this bargain sounds worthwhile. A window of time is better than nothing.
More promising might be little electrical stimulators placed at positions in the brain (though even the doctors doing this surgery can't be very precise and tend to have "favorite places") and clinical use of psychedelic drugs. I think Michael Pollan has just come out with a book about psychedelic drugs and their new uses as well, but, not knowing his mental history, I only hope people will read Slater's for its personal street cred and thoroughness.
June 13, 2018
Damn. I'm angry at Goodreads. I wrote the review and then hit SAVE but the review did not save. This is the second time this has happened and I am just venting. I know, I know, I should always copy before saving. Trust me, I will never not remember to do that again.
So I don't have the whatever to write the whole thing over again. Just go with the idea that I found this to be interesting, informative , and somewhat discouraging. The history of the development and marketing of psychotropic drugs was fascinating. No surprise that Big Pharma is in on it from the beginning. I knew already that scientists are really not sure how the newer anti depressants work. It's not like other medical conditions where cause and effect are clearly visible. You have hight blood pressure, your high blood pressure can be measured, you take the meds, it's clear how the drugs work, and , voila! your blood pressure goes down. Not so with recent psychotropics. How they work is unclear and, in fact, maybe they won't work. It is a hit and miss thing. For some people, the drugs make a big difference. For other people, it's possible that the meds only make their symptoms worse. I am bothered by how much we don't know about psychotropics and how risky they might be. And, to my knowledge, no one is really talking to patients about that.
A few other reviewers were uncomfortable with the chapters on the use of psychedelics and deep brain stimulation in the treatment of mental illness. I, however, appreciate the author's discussion of these strategies. There seems to be plenty of room for investigation in this arena.
In short, if you are looking for a captivating conversation about medication and mental illness, I highly recommend this read.
So I don't have the whatever to write the whole thing over again. Just go with the idea that I found this to be interesting, informative , and somewhat discouraging. The history of the development and marketing of psychotropic drugs was fascinating. No surprise that Big Pharma is in on it from the beginning. I knew already that scientists are really not sure how the newer anti depressants work. It's not like other medical conditions where cause and effect are clearly visible. You have hight blood pressure, your high blood pressure can be measured, you take the meds, it's clear how the drugs work, and , voila! your blood pressure goes down. Not so with recent psychotropics. How they work is unclear and, in fact, maybe they won't work. It is a hit and miss thing. For some people, the drugs make a big difference. For other people, it's possible that the meds only make their symptoms worse. I am bothered by how much we don't know about psychotropics and how risky they might be. And, to my knowledge, no one is really talking to patients about that.
A few other reviewers were uncomfortable with the chapters on the use of psychedelics and deep brain stimulation in the treatment of mental illness. I, however, appreciate the author's discussion of these strategies. There seems to be plenty of room for investigation in this arena.
In short, if you are looking for a captivating conversation about medication and mental illness, I highly recommend this read.
June 18, 2018
I had to give a four for the tremendous amount of thorough research, but the author’s struggle with severe bi-polar and depression make this a difficult book to read. Reading “Blue Dreams” for too long at one sitting gave me a sense of her struggle and left me emotionally bruised to the point of vertigo. The tremendous amount of research documents successive failures of Scientists to “fix” the mentally ill. Her writing makes you feel the fear of these facing lobotomies of a chemical nature willingly but fearfully praying for a cure.At times I felt her mania “ I just can’t stop writing/ I just can’t stop reading this book “ and depression “ I am sure to get one or all of the side effects from these drugs that keep me relatively sane.”Jusr as it’s unclear wether psych drugs made her mouth dry and she lost her teeth or if the acid from purging ruined her teeth or both, the theory that hallucinagens will cure us all is undermined by her chronology of past scientific failures to cure what the sometimes frailty of the mind to distinguish truth from wishful thinking from dreams . I feel for her deeply as a tortured soul struggling to use her brilliance to understand mental health issues that continue to allude defenitive solutions. Hopeful research on hallucinagens sheds some tenuous rays if of hope but again a thoertical reach for help in a sea of the frightening world of madness. The state of the soul and powers of the mind are worth contemplating with her and the history is stellar.. Worth skimming but have another book (or two) to bring you some laughs and some relative sanity. Definelatly not for those struggling to keep their mood up.
August 17, 2019
Written by someone who has suffered deeply, both because of psychological malady and because of the drugs intended to heal her suffering, Slater's perspective is as enlightening as her prose is delightful. I found enjoyable the way that she wove the facts into a narrative structure and the way she took time to enjoy the sunlight, the apple tree, and the blue sky as she wrote. Both of these, along with her personal experience with these struggles, kept the material from being at all dry. With Slater's help, I felt some of the heartache, disappointment, and confusion associated with her subject and experienced by those who suffer because of psychological problems.
A major point to underscore is something I've read elsewhere: there is very little scientific understanding of the idea of psychological illness, very few objectively testable ways to diagnose these illnesses, and almost no substantiated explanation of why psychotropic medicine seems (sometimes) to work.
That said, Slater's skepticism about psychiatric wonder drugs is undermined by her enthusiasm for psychedelics. It was hard for me as a Christian pastor to see her hope in the shaman's magic mushrooms as anything other than a religious phenomenon. Indeed, she consciously described the effects of these drugs in religious terms.
My sincere hope is that Slater finds the peace she deeply longs for in a Source more stable than the mountains and deeper than the seas.
A major point to underscore is something I've read elsewhere: there is very little scientific understanding of the idea of psychological illness, very few objectively testable ways to diagnose these illnesses, and almost no substantiated explanation of why psychotropic medicine seems (sometimes) to work.
That said, Slater's skepticism about psychiatric wonder drugs is undermined by her enthusiasm for psychedelics. It was hard for me as a Christian pastor to see her hope in the shaman's magic mushrooms as anything other than a religious phenomenon. Indeed, she consciously described the effects of these drugs in religious terms.
My sincere hope is that Slater finds the peace she deeply longs for in a Source more stable than the mountains and deeper than the seas.
January 4, 2018
I received a copy of this book for free through a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.
"Blue Dreams" is an interesting history wrapped around the personal story of the author, Lauren Slater. The history of psychotropic drugs is discussed from Thorazine to Prozac to psilocybin and MDMA. The book is laid out linearly from early drugs and procedures to "cure" mania and depression to what future may hold (neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders). It's a well researched and interesting history. Slater cites case studies and talks with individuals that participated in many of the procedures and treatments if possible.
Weaved throughout is Slater's own battle with depression and treatments. Her tale brings depth, empathy and understanding to the plights of others she talks to. She can quote the science, but then take that science and apply it in a personal way to help the reader better understand it (the science).
If you thrive on history (any history), this is a good book to further your understanding of the past within psychotropic drugs. If you or someone you know battles with depression and psychiatric treatments, you may find this book offers you a different perspective on the drugs and treatments used to treat these battles.
"Blue Dreams" is an interesting history wrapped around the personal story of the author, Lauren Slater. The history of psychotropic drugs is discussed from Thorazine to Prozac to psilocybin and MDMA. The book is laid out linearly from early drugs and procedures to "cure" mania and depression to what future may hold (neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders). It's a well researched and interesting history. Slater cites case studies and talks with individuals that participated in many of the procedures and treatments if possible.
Weaved throughout is Slater's own battle with depression and treatments. Her tale brings depth, empathy and understanding to the plights of others she talks to. She can quote the science, but then take that science and apply it in a personal way to help the reader better understand it (the science).
If you thrive on history (any history), this is a good book to further your understanding of the past within psychotropic drugs. If you or someone you know battles with depression and psychiatric treatments, you may find this book offers you a different perspective on the drugs and treatments used to treat these battles.
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