Lit Up: Introducing Our Theme Week for November

Last month I went to a small conference in New York City called Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics. It was a series of academic talks largely about the mental health benefits of tripping face.

One particularly moving talk was about the Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study at NYU in which cancer survivors who suffered from symptoms of depression were given a dose of the drug in a controlled setting. Three of the study participants took the stage to answer questions about their experience. They all agreed the experience was one of the most important of their lives, and that it had lasting effects three years later. And they all agreed they would do it again.

That brings us to this month's theme: LIT UP. It's a phrase that usually means mashing some sort of brain chemical-altering substance into your consciousness in order to achieve a different state of mind.

That could mean lubricating our social anxiety with alcohol, as many of us do on a regular basis. It could mean railing lines of Modafinil in order to pull an all-nighter at your startup. It could mean Oliver Sacks ingesting LSD to explore "what the mind is capable of," or it could mean buzzing your neurons with electricity or pure light.

This month is about lighting up the mind with all sorts of inputs: nootropics, optogenetics, SAD lamps, tantric sex, orgasmic childbirth, and even mindful eating.

Lit Up will run November 23 to 27. Pitch us stories at editor@motherboard.tv. We know you're super baked right now, but please send a working headline, three to four sentence description that does not consist of a series of questions, word count, and deadline for every pitch.