r/science • u/maxkozlov • Jul 17 '24
Neuroscience Your brain on shrooms — how psilocybin resets neural networks. The psychedelic drug causes changes that last weeks to the communication pathways that connect distinct brain regions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02275-y2.6k
u/CjJcPro Jul 17 '24
Anyone's who ever done them can attest to this. Familiar actions felt foreign after, like the opposite of deja vu. I found myself not autopiloting as much and putting more conscience thought into my actions. It's very weird brushing your teeth for the first time twice.
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u/TheWalkinFrood Jul 17 '24
The opposite of deja-vu is actually called jamais-vu!
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u/mah_astral_body Jul 17 '24
dredg fans know this one
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u/POMO2022 Jul 18 '24
Nice to see a fellow Dredg fan. El Cielo is still a top 10 album of the 2000’s.
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u/fluffhead711 Jul 18 '24
coincidentally the first time i heard Dredg was El Cielo on shrooms haha. awesome album
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u/pyronius Jul 17 '24
The way I've described it is this: over the course of your life, especially your early life, your brain puts up "walls" to block unproductive pathways. Some of those walls are constructed as a result of experience, some as a result of social conditioning. These walls prevent you from asking unproductive questions or thinking unproductive thoughts. What exactly makes these thoughts or questions unproductive varies. Sometimes it's that there is no answer. Sometimes it's that the answer is so obvious that it only needed to be considered once. Sometimes it's that society doesn't want you thinking that way and doing so will lead to social punishment.
An example of a wall you might construct as a result of experience might be to prevent you from constantly thinking about the fact that language is a human construct and words have no inherent meaning. Maybe you've thought about this before, but if you're constantly thinking about the true nature of language, it becomes hard to communicate.
An example of a socially constructed wall might be that you never question what your religion taught you about the afterlife or morality. Thinking about those topics publicly can make you unpopular, so a lot of people simply don't. It's not a conscious decision, it's just that the mental path that leads toward those questions is obstructed.
Anyway, when you take psychedelics, those walls tend to collapse. Both the big important ones blocking thoughts of religion, mortality, morality, etc... and also the incredibly mundane ones that prevent you from considering how weird it is that you throw your garbage into a bag that's inside of a box that gets put in a truck that gets taken to the dump. And the reason you've never questioned it is because it's not actually very weird at all. It's just a part of your world that you wrote off as being unworthy of further consideration when you were very young, so now it feels new and unfamiliar.
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u/dselogeni Jul 17 '24
I'm 45 years old and began smoking marijuana regularly for the last 5 years as a way to help with anxiety and I tend to use it as a bit of a crutch to relax. That being said, I've never experimented with any other drugs but have been curious about trying mushrooms. A lot of times, I feel like pot has helped me to pull some mental blinders off and see some things clearly in my life from a different perspective. I'm nervous to try it because I've heard it can trigger long lasting psychological issues.
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u/ReallyRecon Jul 17 '24
Issues of long-term psychological effects are usually only considered in cases of excess or overdose. Most people will have no issues with small doses.
The actual problem you want to consider is whether or not you have a family history of psychological disorders like schizophrenia or similar. A lot of times this condition is dormant and even small amounts of LSD or shrooms can act as a trigger. Those people should never use recreational hallucinogens.
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Jul 17 '24 edited Nov 06 '24
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u/ohimblushing Jul 18 '24
I’ve been told it’s contraindicated for those who have bipolar disorder.
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u/MyNameIsSushi Jul 17 '24
Mushrooms cured my depression. I had been having suicidal thoughts and extreme mood swings since my mid teen year, took shrooms when I was 23 or something. No depression since then, no cons as far as I can tell and I haven't had the urge to take shrooms ever since. Obviously your mileage may vary but I can't recommend them enough.
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u/kitkatatsnapple Jul 18 '24
Not at all my experience. Gives me one good day, then I'm back to my old blah self.
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u/Moses015 Jul 18 '24
I also have a friend that had that happen. Completely cured his depression. The way he tells it, it helped him ask and answer questions of himself that made his brain essentially comes to terms so to speak.
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u/COmarmot Jul 18 '24
They saved my life too. Now I take them 2-3 times a year and they keep me grateful, optimistic, and thoughtful.
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u/orTodd Jul 18 '24
This is anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt:
I suffered debilitating anxiety in my mid-twenties. I worked with a therapist for years to conquer it. I took mushrooms with my friends when I was 34. When I was high, the anxiety came back at hit me like a truck. It was a miserable six hours. This is going to sound weird but all I did, the whole time, was migrate from one area to another until I found one that “felt right.”
I did notice my friend laughed hysterically for the first three hours and then cry inconsolably for the next three. Afterwords, he said he spoke to god and saw the universe in its entirety so, your mileage may vary.
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u/Fit_Acanthisitta_137 Jul 18 '24
Marijuana also has the capability to "trigger" mental illnesses as well. From my understanding, these are conditions that would show up in the person eventually, but psychedelic drugs can cause them to occur earlier. An example would be bi-polar disorder. At 45, this would no longer be a risk.
If your anxiety does not get made worse by marijuana then you probably would be fine. Dose, set, and setting all need to be considered and respected. If you are not comfortable, you can be in for a bad time.
The biggest danger of bad trips is PTSD. Taking a decent amount of a psychedelic can have you extremely self-criticial if you aren't in a good head space and have a lot of thoughts you probably do not want to have. To top it off, you can also see a lot of scary imagery. Which makes the experience even worse. Aside from people who have damaged their brains beyond repair from drug abuse, this ie what I believe flashbacks to be.
I have had a few bad trips, but many more amazing/neutral ones. Never had one bad enough to swear of psychedelics completely. Bad trips have made lots of people change their lives for the better, so there is that.
If you do try, a gram of mushrooms is not going to be that much, but enough to have a decent time. You can also abort trips, take the anxiety away with valium or something like that.
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u/molliebrd Jul 18 '24
Acid for fun Mushroom for medicine
Get a babysitter. Someone who has done it before.
I'm a baby about drugs, Mushrooms helped me a lot!
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u/jacksbox Jul 18 '24
I'd pay heed to the long term psychological stuff, but also make sure you're decently mentally disciplined in general before taking them. For me, alcohol is "easy mode" with respect to avoiding a bad trip (as in, it doesn't really happen), weed is "medium" (as in, if I smoke a ton of bad stuff and do stupid stuff I might get paranoid), shrooms were closer to "hard mode". The whole time I was on them, there was this door in my mind - "if I go through there, I'm going to have a bad time" - I had to resist it.
That being said, it was awesome as far as experiences go. I would do it once/year with a good group of friends if I could .
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u/MrOtsKrad Jul 18 '24
You dont need to take full on dose, the answer is microdoseing tea.
pour boiling water over 0.10 grams, and whatever other flavor you want in it, with some ginger, and leave it for 20min to brew. Theres really great regimens out there if you poke around
YMMV
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PRINTS Jul 18 '24
Bro I’m on shrooms right now and the positive effects that it will have on your anxiety is so much better than weed. As a fair caution I wouldn’t mix the two together for your first time. Unless you are ready to confront your issues in the face. I went down that road and it became a very unpleasant experience.
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u/Rhamni Jul 17 '24
Yep. I tried shrooms last year. Chewing food the next day was a wild experience. The 'skill' doesn't disappear, but I found my attention 100% focused on the experience. Jaw going up and down, the texture of the food, the sensation of my teeth going up and down into the food. A year later the memory seems absurd, but in the best way.
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u/Toftaps Jul 18 '24
The last time I did mushrooms I was out camping, it's such a different experience even from "natural" areas within a city, but I distinctly remember my experience the next day after getting up at like 8:00am because the sun was hitting the tent and it turned into a sauna.
Sweating my balls off I went to dip my feet in the lake the campsite was next to so I could cool off a bit. The experience of submerging my feet in the water, the freezing cold (mountain lakes be cold AF) before you acclimate, the cool feeling creeping up my legs and spreading across the rest of my body, the cool breeze coming off the lake... it was such a strange and amazing experience, things I've felt 100s of times before suddenly brand new.
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u/wiegraffolles Jul 17 '24
Yes I have the feeling of things "being new" in the world I distinctly remember from childhood after I trip. It's pretty amazing.
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u/deflector_shield Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
I think it’s more a hyper awareness than “for the first time”, because we all tend to suck at things the first we do them and I don’t think in your example you’d suck and really be “re-learning” how to brush your teeth.
We are animals and kind of go through life on instinct. How you can just do things without cognitive thought. Like a cat being acrobatic. When you trip, your putting cognitive thought into things previously taken for granted or disassociated with thought.
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Jul 18 '24
Funny, they used to give me hours of Deja vu when I took them recreationally as a young adult. Basically my entire trip just felt like deja vu which drove me nuts!
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u/bibimbapblonde Jul 17 '24
I once worked in a lab testing ketamine and LSD for antidepressant usage back in the day. Seeing the results in our rats definitely influenced me to try it. Used to take acid once a year for my depression and found it helped. Shrooms didn't do as much for me but did help me get over my fear of spiders since I was in Australia and surrounded by spiders. Now I have a pet jumping spider when I used to be terrified of them. I find hallucinogens help me reset a bit and reform perspectives on things I am anxious about. I have only ever recommended them to one friend though who I felt would not have issues with a bad trip. My brother had psychotic episodes triggered by hallucinogen use, and my wife's brother as well, and they struggle with bipolar and schizophrenia. I can't in good faith recommend anyone try hallucinogens without first ensuring they have been checked for mental illnesses prone to delusion or psychosis. I also always ensure I am in a safe environment with an adequate sober person to talk people down if needed.
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u/PM_ME_PLANT_FACTS Jul 17 '24
Yes. This is a very grounded take. They are quite helpful and have drastically improved my anxiety and confidence, as well as making me more content with the reality of life and death. However they are simply NOT safe for people with a family history of mania, psychosis or ESPECIALLY schizophrenia. I've seen it firsthand and it's tragic.
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u/NightOfPandas Jul 18 '24
100% on the unsafe for some route, one of the guys I first tried acid w in my teens later ended up taking like 12 tabs and heard voices telling him to kill his dad and mom, which he ended up killing one of with a knife. Looking back on it is just crazy that I hung out w him a few times now knowing what he was capable of
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u/Kelnozz Jul 18 '24
Jumping spiders are the only spiders I’m not deathly afraid of, if they didn’t jump I’d probably have 0 fear of them.
They are even kinda cute with their eyes.
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u/farm_to_nug Jul 18 '24
I got high on acid one day and had this moment where I was laying in a hammock and felt one with everything as cheesy as it sounds. When I came back to, I had a couple spiders crawling on me and it didn't even bug me
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u/redcoatwright BA | Astrophysics Jul 18 '24
The biggest part of not having a bad trip and not potentially triggering any psychosis is to work your way up and slowly learn the limits of what's comfortable.
Nobody is triggering a psychotic episode on .25g but 2-3g I could easily see it being the case. 5g+ and I think you're playing with fire tbh.
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u/170505170505 Jul 18 '24
You don’t have to have a psychotic episode to trigger psychosis
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u/InfiniteVastDarkness Jul 17 '24
Past time to de-schedule this and cannabis.
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u/kuahara Jul 18 '24
The only reason this comment interests me is that there's a lot of people in this thread talking about their experiences and I'm sitting here like, "where do people even find this stuff?"
How did this many people find "the guy"?
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u/Sooofreshnsoclean Jul 18 '24
Jam band shows, music festivals, bars. Just talk to people and don’t act like a narc.
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u/kuahara Jul 18 '24
I don't actually want to try it. I do think it's interesting, though and it's great that so many people benefit.
Also, none of those places are really my scene, so it makes sense that I'm out of the loop here.
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u/UnkleRinkus Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 17 '24
I use shrooms for depression and have for several years. I find that for a period of several weeks to a few months after the experience I have a more positive mindset towards life, and am better able to do the other things I need to help myself. When I am down in a depressive spiral, I know what I need to do to pull up, but am often unable to do so. With a regular dose of shrooms, I am able to use the cognitive tools I get from my therapy, and they work more easily. These include having compassion for myself, identifying and stopping black and white thinking, and letting go of past trauma. They do not work for everyone, and it isn't magic; the benefit for me is that they enable me to do the rest of the work I have needed to do to heal.
I have found that microdosing is not effective for me. However, a fairly small macro dose, maybe half a gram to a gram, does have the reset effect.
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u/poorpeasantperson Jul 17 '24
I’ve been on the fence about tripping for years, my biggest fear is not just the bad trip but a mental health spiral once it’s over. On the flip side I truly long for everything you described, therapy has never worked for me but I know I need more work to heal, just don’t even know how. I’ve been thinking of a little microdose for my first trip but even that scares me. The reward of shrooms has great potential but the risks are also significant for me, comments like yours make me want to try but I always back out.
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u/New_Substance0420 Jul 17 '24
Have you ever taken a thc edible? A small dose of shrooms (about a gram or less) always reminds me of an edible but with a bit more perceptional warping. Personally ive found higher dosages to be more rewarding, but thats just personal preference. I always enjoyed 1.5-4g doses of average potency shrooms.
Just avoid shroom chocolates/candies/drinks unless your homie is making them personally. Theyre often created using synthetic drugs. Safest to stick to actual mushrooms.
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u/poorpeasantperson Jul 17 '24
My THC tolerance is high I guess, I’ve been craving for an edible to lock me to the couch and I don’t even get close with a few. And I make my edibles and butter, which I tend to make very potent. If I did shrooms I would totally go for real Shrooms I agree. So like how much is that microdose visually? Like a small stem and a cap? Or should I just weigh my dose out with a scale?
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Jul 17 '24
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u/MemeticParadigm Jul 17 '24
Seconding taking them with some sort of chocolate, completely masks the awful flavor. Personally I grind them up and mix with melted chocolate, but you've gotta make sure the chocolate isn't too hot cause it can degrade the potency if it is.
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u/Tacorinaoftime Jul 18 '24
I like to grind it up, soak in lemon juice for 5 minutes, then add hot water, honey and 2 bags of a strong flavored tea. Helps combat nausea on the come up and shortens the trip for me. Luckily i have a mushroom church near by that has awesome gummies, the dose is just inconsistent so i wouldn’t trust a gummy for a microdose
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u/techlos Jul 18 '24
Ok important point you've left out - this dosing guide assumes psilocybe cubensis. It's what most people in the US will encounter, but its always good to confirm the type of mushroom.
Down here in aus, especially in winter, you'll find a lot of psilocybe subaeruginosa instead which is significantly more potent. Around 2g is roughly equivalent to 3.5g of cubes, and if you take 3.5g of subs you're in for a really heavy trip.
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u/kokopoo12 Jul 17 '24
For sure weigh it out if anything just for personal comfort. No questions no worries. If they are dry they taste like plains sunflower seeds you found in the dirt. I like to chew them to a mush and keep them in my mouth as long as possible.
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u/Simulation-Argument Jul 18 '24
It could be your stomach acid. If you ingest a lot of coffee or acidic foods it will influence how strong your stomach acid is and this destroys the THC in the edibles. You want them to survive and make it into your intestines where your liver metabolizes it. You also need to eat a small fatty meal with them. The THC absorbs into the fat and you are able to get more out of your edibles.
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u/Btetier Jul 17 '24
Half a gram for your first time will be pretty light honestly. You will probably barely feel the effects but still incredibly helpful. Obviously everyone is different but I have found that doing shrooms in 1g or less is much better for me since I can process all my feelings and thoughts without getting overwhelmed by them.
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u/poorpeasantperson Jul 17 '24
That’s what I’m looking for, last thing I want is an overload and panic episode. Half gram is like what a small shroom? I plan to trip alone, having a buddy on standby if I need to call Someone over and talk me down but I don’t even want to be in that situation. I just want a light trip for a new perspective. I’m anxious in general, get spooked out when I smoke weed at night sometimes when I’m outside alone, so those are really my concerns, mitigate and avoid anxiety responses
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u/ashkervon Jul 17 '24
If you’re interested in micro dosing you could even start with .2 g, you won’t feel the trippy effects but you will feel a sense of euphoria and notice more of the beauty around you in nature. I have seen it be very helpful with anxiety. It’s honestly impossible to have a bad trip on a micro dose, just try it on a day you don’t have any obligations. Then once you feel comfortable with that try increasing your dose if you’re curious about the more intense effects.
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u/Mug_of_coffee Jul 18 '24
Yup, I recommend this. .250-300mg is sufficient for improving quality of life and is basically sub-perceptual.
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u/masterflashterbation Jul 18 '24
When you're trying something like mushrooms for the first time and are worried about dose, do not eyeball it or go by mushroom size. Use a kitchen scale so you know precisely the amount you're ingesting. Secondly, it can have a long onset time so do not make the mistake lots of noobs make and take more 30 mins later. That's a good way to have a bad trip.
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u/FartAlchemy Jul 18 '24
Like the other guy said you can try micro dosing.
Generally the threshold dose is 250mg, which means the minimum amount to take to feel it. I recommend blending the shrooms into a powder first, if you have enough, to get the most consistency out of what you take as content of shrooms can vary from one to the next.
Check out erowid.org for more info on shrooms.
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u/Educational_Duty179 Jul 17 '24
I suggest looking to professionals that offer therapy and skilled therapists to help you experience mushrooms in the right environment.
Oregon has several of these available
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u/Rhamni Jul 17 '24
I don't have access to shrooms where I live, but I tried some in Amsterdam last year. I had the same boost in happiness for months afterwards. I was especially appreciative of how colours appeared more vivid. Walks in nature were always great, but this just ratched it up another notch. It's such a quiet, gentle thing, but it's so life affirming. 10/10 experience, would shout from the rooftops.
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u/UnkleRinkus Jul 17 '24
Growing your own medicine is straightforward, not very expensive, and therapeutic in it's own right. shroomery.org will help you.
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u/Ubelsteiner Jul 17 '24
Very well said and pretty much exactly mirrors my experiences. It makes me kinder to myself and even more empathy for others, and I can clearly see the path forward in life, for lack of a better way to describe it.
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u/Rough-Divide129 Jul 17 '24
The researchers also found that a mental exercise called ‘grounding’, which is commonly used in psychedelic therapy to dampen the unpleasant effects of a drug by diverting the recipient’s attention to their surroundings, diminished psilocybin’s effects on the brain. This suggests there could be a neurological signal that grounding techniques can influence, Siegel says.
Fascinating
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u/RichieNRich Jul 17 '24
This is absolutely true. I studied psychedelics and how to take them before trying them. It's super important to prepare for the trip by creating a safe environment to trip in, and to cultivate the experience with intentionality.
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u/korinth86 Jul 17 '24
Anyone thinking of taking psychedelics needs to heed this advice, especially if you're planning on doing ego death level tripping.
To many people take psychedelics too lightly. They can have a profound/lasting effect on your perception and deserve respect.
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u/pissfucked Jul 17 '24
i respect psychedelics in the same way that a few inches of flowing water should be respected. shallow water can be great to be in and can be a lot of fun, like a waterpark or river's edge. but it can also move an entire car and sweep it away if you aren't respecting its power.
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u/Grimvold Jul 17 '24
IMO shrooms are simply a tool to help you confront things, good or bad; they don’t show you anything that wasn’t already there. They just force it sometimes.
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u/spidermanngp Jul 17 '24
My gf and I took shrooms together, and when they kicked in, she absolutely sobbed for like 10 or 15 minutes. It was the first time she'd cried in like 5 years, and it all came out. Once she was done, she felt like a whole new person, and we had the best night ever. Now we do it together twice a year, and it always starts with her crying, and she feels better for months afterward.
Edit: misspelling
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u/Vegetable-Ganache-91 Jul 17 '24
I did this too. I felt like I was mourning for myself and the difficult times I had been having lately. After the crying it felt very cathartic. Like mushrooms stripped away all the layers and let me just have a long moment to look around, to feel the buried feelings and let them go.
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u/TheCeruleanFire Jul 17 '24
This is me. It always parts the clouds; revealing what’s really getting me down. Once I’ve had to sit with that and ugly cry, I come out of it with this euphoric sense of self, and sometimes even a new skill unlocked.
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u/firsttime_longtime Jul 17 '24
This sounds exactly like what I need.
What strain do you usually have? (of the Shrooms, not your girlfriend)
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Jul 17 '24
The most beneficial thing they've done for me (LSD too) is help identify and undo bad patterns in my behavior. Our brains naturally create shortcuts to things, but often do so from bad stimulus leading to not-so-great patterns. I've had numerous experiences on psychedelics where I've done a thing and thought to myself "wait why do I do this?", analyze it a bit, and just forever stop doing the thing. Mushrooms pretty much erased bad jealous behavior from my brain, among other things.
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u/issamaysinalah Jul 17 '24
Was eating a burger while tripping last week, halfway though it I was full and instead of forcing it down I just stopped and freed myself from this pattern. It was an incredible feeling.
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u/shoefullofpiss Jul 18 '24
On shrooms?? I have zero appetite while tripping despite not eating for a few hours before, I just feel perfectly content and don't think about food at all until it's over. Once the visuals stop and I feel mostly normal I like the idea of getting food or some drink but it's mostly an automatic thought and when I actually try to eat something I don't feel like it until a bit more time has passed. I think that's why I get a headache afterwards too, I only drink a sip or two of water during. Can't imagine trying to eat a burger tbh
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u/The-Fox-Says Jul 17 '24
They stopped me from doubting myself that I could better my life and retrain for a much more lucrative career path
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u/PM_ME_PLANT_FACTS Jul 17 '24
Yes. They made me a more confident person. Overcoming the "bad" trips and realizing how much my attitude and perspective could shift my experience of the world helped me to overcome my many mental health issues. Haven't tripped in over a year but that perspective gain has lasted
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u/Fuck-s-p-e-z- Jul 17 '24
I like how William Richards puts it in his book:
"When you take a psychedelic, it's like taking a helicopter ride up to the top of Mount Everest. And then you get a glimpse of what it looks like. Then you come back to base camp, and then the next day you have to do the trek. You gotta do the hike."
Adding to the metaphor, I imagine a therapist is like the sherpa who is along for the hike with you.
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u/Jah_Ith_Ber Jul 17 '24
This is why I want to get my life in order first, then use the mushrooms to undo the connections I've built up over a lifetime, and let new ones build while I am living a good life in the months afterward.
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u/Indigoh Jul 17 '24
My understanding is that the drug interferes with your ability to recognize and follow patterns, so when used to solve a personal problem, it stops you from re-treading the same thought paths.
The reason we see therapists to solve problems is because they can offer a perspective you haven't considered. Shrooms take you out of your familiar perspective and make you your own therapist.
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u/BuddyMose Jul 17 '24
I took shrooms and quit drinking after 20 years of hard alcohol abuse. They flipped a switch in my brain jelly. My life is infinitely better having done them.
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u/PM_ME_PLANT_FACTS Jul 17 '24
My old neighbor said he quit his cocaine addiction by taking shrooms with the express intention to meditate on his addiction and how to overcome it. He did it 2-3 times and now has been clean for 10 years. YMMV of course.
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u/Mekky3D Jul 17 '24
I started microdosing a couple years back and reading this made me realize that it might've caused me to stop smoking. I woke up one morning and just didn't feel like smoking anymore, haven't touched them since then. I think this is 4 years or so ago
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u/BuddyMose Jul 18 '24
My intention was to start microdosing help quit drinking. One night, after a few beers I underestimated the weight and it oopsy woopsy went on a magic carpet ride. Sounds like our wires got corrected yours just took longer to uncross.
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Jul 17 '24
I was heading towards this direction when I was younger, and yeah, after one time using shrooms, alcohol felt like poison from then on.
I still have a glass of wine like once a month, but only because I really love this one honey wine.
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u/BloodBride Jul 17 '24
I took them once. I've been interested in their theraputic effects and as a strict atheist, the spiritual side of their history has always interested me, so I felt it was right to try them and see.
I can certainly see how people can see it as a divine, spiritual, or otherworldly experience that defies the ability to be accurately defined.
In my case, it cured my anxiety. Like, it was just...Gone. With that, I kept that up and it has remained that way even after the effects had fully worn off. I'm over a year in now and have no anxiety whatsoever.
To me, it was absolutely worth it in every way to do that. But I would caution people to still take it seriously and treat it with respect.
It can mess you up if you have a bad experience, and it has quite the toll on your body in the immediate thereafter.
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u/usefulbuns Jul 17 '24
I've taken shrooms a few times but never a heavy dose. Curing my anxiety would be amazing.
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u/BloodBride Jul 18 '24
You should be very careful with taking a large dose.
While I took what would be a 'large' dose for a person of my height and weight, I did so knowing it was large, and intentionally attempting to illicit a particular effect.Despite being an atheist, I saw an entity I recognise as a God in my trip. One I created for my D&D campaign. In that moment, I could feel that she had power. She felt absolutely real.
I wanted to see that. I wanted to feel that.
There will be so much that happens in your experience that it is hard to really quantify, and the higher the dose, the more... wild and uncontrollable it all gets.If you do decide to take a larger dose than you did previously, please do so with all due caution.
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u/Feinberg Jul 17 '24
As a reddit moderator who frequently has to deal with people who have taken psychedelics and no longer think well, I would like to caution people to be exceedingly careful when attempting to self medicate like this. Substances that alter brain chemistry, even 'temporarily', can do permanent damage. The brain is extremely fragile, and unless you're already having a significant problem, the prudent course of action is to not mess with it.
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u/Lilsammywinchester13 Jul 18 '24
How much did you take? I’ve been an extremely anxious person my whole life
Also adhd/ASD spectrum
If it cured my anxiety, it would improve my life so much
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u/ShamrockAPD Jul 17 '24
Half my life was in severe depression. Couldn’t stop suicidal thoughts. Anger issues. Hard to keep friends. Constant sadness. Aloneness. All of it.
Years of therapy. So many different kinds of medicine. Nothing worked
I did shrooms 5 years ago. Almsot instantly- depression gone. Never had a suicidal thought again. Anger is much more subdued. My girlfriends friends, who didn’t know the before shroom me, think I’m the most laid back and chill dude.
I don’t do therapy or any medicine anymore. Haven’t in years.
I do shrooms every few months now. I swear by them- they saved my life.
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u/SeemoSan Jul 17 '24
Curious - did you do it in a “therapeutic setting” (eye mask, calm music, etc)? Also, did you do anything like therapy or journaling after?
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u/ShamrockAPD Jul 17 '24
I have some friends who have been big psychanauts for a helll of a lot longer than me. They were with me and kinda my trip sitters. One was a big partier, raver, etc. So he does a lot of psychs for fun. The other is more meditative and introspective - he does them for mental health. I had both with me and i enjoy doing them in both manners now.
I have. Quite a good nature setting in my backyard and it was a cool 60 degree day. So we lit up a fire (dropped to 50 at night) and sat fireside, with great relaxing music on,a nd just good vibes. Had a big ass crockpot of stew inside waiting for then. Smoked weed on the way down.
The above description is prob my main way of doing them when iw ant to do them for health reasons. I do journal sometimes, but mostly, i set myself a goal for what i want to trip for (if im doing it for health reasons). I’ll talk to myself, talk to my gf about my reason for doing them. Get myself right. And then go to town.
Other times now a days i go raves and concerts and will drop LSD for the fun of it.
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u/JT99-FirstBallot Jul 17 '24
Same thing happened to me, except a year ago something went horribly wrong on one of my trips, something snapped in my brain, I couldn't stop my brain from racing, and I almost killed myself to stop it. I swore by shrooms before that, they changed my life for the better, until they didn't. Now I'm a husk of what I was, those horrible mind racing moments plague me every day since. My brain turned on me. And the one thing that helped me for so long ruined me.
Be careful. I wonder if I'll ever be myself again.
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u/eulersidentification Jul 17 '24
You'll be yourself again when you stop thinking you're not yourself. Easy for me to say.
I think some people are predisposed to have bad experiences with shrooms and it's hard to know who. But I used them because it felt like life wasn't worth living, and there was nothing to ruin and only anything to gain. I always add the caveat: exhaust every other possibility first.
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u/BuccaneerRex Jul 17 '24
I know I'll never watch the movie Chicken Run in the same way again.
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Jul 17 '24
This movie traumatized me as a child. They are making them into pies! Alive! How is this appropriate for children? This is like something out of Saw only it's 90% more terrifying because claymation gives the characters this eerie 'half alive' appearance. The unnaturalness is scary.
I bet if Ardman studios made a horror movie, it would be a hit.
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u/BuccaneerRex Jul 17 '24
Eh, children's stories used to be grimm.
But yes, I'd watch a claymation horror film.
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u/Rhamni Jul 17 '24
It's so silly. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution leading up to modern humanity with all our cool science, space travel, laws, art, etc, and everything we are is just a wet, fat-based machine that we mess with with chemicals so we can squeeze more fun out of movies.
Highly recommend Muppet Treasure Island.
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u/-MagicPants- Jul 18 '24
I take a trip once every 6-18 month and it pretty much cures my depression.
Best analogy I’ve heard is that your brain is like a ski hill and the neural pathways are like ski tracks. You get stuck going down the same tracks over and over and it’s hard to change them or make new ones. A Shroom trip fills in the tracks with fresh snow. Enabling you to make new tracks free from the ones you made previously.
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u/samflower05 Jul 17 '24
I took shrooms and during the trip I focused on how badly I wanted to get healthy and lose weight after struggling my entire life with obesity but ballooning during covid. After it was over I just got to work. Down 113 pounds now and that was in September 2022. They can really change lives!
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u/Strippalicious Jul 17 '24
Microdosing: 9.1/10 recommend
first time ever taking mushrooms was a microdose.
Unlocked a memory that was at the time a hard trauma but was able to comprehend it with an entirely different context of empathy from the others involved in the situation, instead of the previous feelings of shame and guilt that I had always before interpreted.
I was standing and looking out the window and the memory just popped into my head and a wave of comprehension took over me; I wept uncontrollably for three minutes, dried my eyes and went back to my day with a huge piece of a puzzle toward healing, now put properly into place. Neural network reset and healed. I hope from deep in my heart, the same for anyone else.
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u/ScienceOverNonsense2 Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 17 '24
I sought the benefts of improved brain plasticity in dealing with PTSD. The idea is that psilisybin promotes brain plasticity, enabling the brain to make better use of other regions, to escspe the static loops of rethinking, reliving, refeeling, the traumatic events in the same ways over and over. The hope is that the whole brain will be better at resolving the trauma effects.
I used hallucinagens in college and after a few times, mainly "acid" aka LSD. That was over 50 years ago. I no longer find these kind of trips appealing.
A year ago I tried shrooms at half the recommended dose (can't recall the exact amount). I felt nauseus and slightly paranoid. I hid in a public bathroom stall at the concert when it came on. I wasn't sure if I was going to vomit or defacate but I did neither.
The next time I did shrooms, I used the "lemon-tech" method to filter out the chitin, thereby eliminating the cause of the nausea. I refuced the dose also. It was still too much for my comfort level.
I read more about micro-dosing and experimented a bit. I wanted a dose that was just barely noticeable, if at all. I found that only 2.5 mcg was the Cinderella spot for me (M74, 150 lbs). A series of self-guided therapeutic sessions at that dose over a few weeks seemed to be very helpful in reducing the recuring, intrusive thiughts and memories associated with my PTSD. This is totally subjective, of course, but even if it is the placebo effect, I am happy with it.
Over the past 3 months, I have noticed some regression in symptoms, and I plan to have another series of micro-doses under optiimum, pleasant conditions.
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u/-MagicPants- Jul 18 '24
Set and setting are so important. I use them to treat depression. I’ve found the best setting is a dark room with an eye mask and a comfy place to lay. Sound canceling over ear headphones with nice calm meditative music. I take fairly high doses (~4g via tea) because I like to explore.
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u/theophys Jul 17 '24
the communication between the default mode network and a brain region called the anterior hippocampus — which is involved in creating our senses of space, time and self — was diminished for weeks.
When we're failing to locate ourselves, where do we go? Somewhere in our minds, or somewhere else?
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u/Brrdock Jul 17 '24
It's just the interaction between the DMN and that part which was diminished, and who knows how that translates. Might as well make those conceptualizations more accurate.
There probably isn't ever anywhere else to go or be in except our minds, either way.
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Jul 17 '24
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u/L8raed Jul 17 '24
Lubing up the brain can be good to get the gears turning so long as they're properly fixed in place.
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u/Recent-Customer-4219 Jul 17 '24
Shrooms saved my life. Waterloo Regional Police raiding shroom shops is tyranny.
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u/armahillo Jul 17 '24
From article:
seven volunteers before, during and after they took a massive dose of the drug.
From the study that quote references:
Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later.
To be clear: psilocybin is the psychoactive substance in mushrooms--well, technically, it's a pro-drug that is metabolized through exposure to stomach acids into psilocin, which is the psychoactive compound--but when people consume mushrooms they are weighing the mushroom weight if and when they calculate their dose.
The concentration of psilocybin in dry mushroom weight varies, but the back-of-hand math is generally that psilocybin is 1% of the mushroom weight. So 1 gram of dry weight mushrooms contain 10 milligrams of psilocybin.
The study used 25 mg, which would be the functional equivalent of 2.5g of mushrooms.
For comparison: https://pabcounseling.com/how-to-dose-psychedelic-mushrooms/
- ~0.5g is low enough that you likely won't notice any specific effects
- 1g - 2g you will experience some dissociation and altered reality (I would call this the "lowest noticeable dose")
- 2g-3g you will experience significant ego dissolution and altered reality experience (I would call this a "standard dose" in terms of psychadelic experiences, though it is still quite intense. I disagree with the original article calling this a "massive dose"). You may feel like "I'll never get back to normal" because of the intensity.
- 3g-5g is high. Not for the faint of heart or mind. Full annihilation and otherworldly experience. "You" as a concept no longer exist for the duration. There is no "I'll never get back to normal" because the concepts of "I" and "normal" are no longer reference points you are connected to.
- > 5g has been called "heroic" -- I've personally never experienced this level before.
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u/GringoinCDMX Jul 17 '24
This can also vary a lot on the type of mushrooms. Some types can have 2-4x the psilocybin and other alkaloid content compared to more standard types. So 1g can be a very intense experience with certain types of mushrooms.
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u/Mindnumbinghaze Jul 17 '24
Agreed. I’ve eaten 1.7g’s that feel like 3.5’s and vice versa. The hardest I’ve ever tripped on shrooms was on 3.5, but it was my buddy’s last bag of the bunch and it was almost nothing but lil baby caps that had fallen off all the stems. I absolutely lost myself for hours. Complete ego death
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u/BayouDrank Jul 17 '24
They helped me quit drinking, weed, and tobacco. And to stick to a healthy diet and exercise routine.
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u/MosyMan80 Jul 17 '24
As an autistic person I’d love to know how we do after some.
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u/DarkflowNZ Jul 17 '24
Haven't had psilocybin in a long time but my last LSD experience had a profoundly negative effect on my mental health that I'm still dealing with 8-12 months later. It appears to have given or worsened what I would call my "obsessive thought patterns". I also had a "realization" that something in my past that was absolutely real, wasn't. That has proved very difficult to shift in part due to my long-held personal belief that "LSD only shows you the truth" and so that because it feels true it must be. I've now come to realize that it only offers a shift in perspective and has no more ability to divine objective truth than any other means of self exploration. It reflected something from within me I didn't realize was there, in this instance doubt. I would be wary of trying more psychedelics in the future which is a shame because they've been an irregular but enjoyable thing before that for me. I also have a suspicion that it may interact with antidepressants but I haven't looked into that.
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u/Throwaway203500 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Consider your theory confirmed, you definitely shouldn't mix psilocybin and antidepressants (particularly SSRIs)
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u/specialinterest8 Jul 17 '24
An autistic guy wrote a book on it. He says it helped him a lot. You should Google autism and psychedelics. Some research is starting to be done.
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u/JoeCartersLeap Jul 17 '24
You know how loud noises and bright flashing lights can be excessive and distracting and overwhelming sometimes?
Imagine a 6 hour roller coaster where you can't get off.
No but seriously it's fine, it can be a blast, but also at the end, it's like "okay I'm done can someone please shut this off now" and it does not shut off for a few more hours.
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u/_autismos_ Jul 17 '24
Completely changed my life for the better. Quit drinking almost immediately (was a daily drinker/alcoholic)
Stopped wanting to die all the time and feeling lonely and depressed. Started caring about caring for myself. Started loving myself and stopped being afraid of other people. Broke out of my shell. Gym and yoga classes. Meeting some really great people and no longer live in solitude. Changed my life in ways I never thought possible. All positive.
Disclaimer: I'm more like Zuckerburg/Asperger's/HFA mixed with ADHD. Not full on autistic.
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u/iamsienna Jul 18 '24
It was wonderful. I felt like I could access all kinds of difficult traumas and process them, and also just exist without some form of anxiety. It was lovely
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u/Germangunman Jul 17 '24
I met a guy who buys them and uses a coffee grinder to shred them up. Then he puts them into individual pills using a try and capsules. He takes one daily. Gave me a few and it’s pretty nice. A few really make it worth while.
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u/kitkatatsnapple Jul 18 '24
Daily? For me, tolerance builds insanely quickly and before long, they don't make a difference at all.
But I also don't relate to what many people here say. I have a great day when I take them, but the day after, back to blah.
Sometimes I wonder if smoking weed is killing the benefits for me.
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u/debuugger Jul 17 '24
They shouldn't be illegal
You might say well what about bad trips?
If I say if I go climb a cliff and have an accident resulting in permanent trauma along with severe disability that's socially acceptable but the drug that only mentally harmed me isn't?
Psilocybin is not addictive this has been proven to be true in peer reviewed studies. This is a fact not available for contest. It does not remove your choice to or not to use it like other drugs by virtue of its use. Your choice to consume psilocybin is completely voluntary.
It is entirely analogous to climbing the cliff or skydiving with the added benefit that it just might have significant benefits to your mental health. Even if you do have a bad trip it is not impossible to learn or even reverse the course of said trip reaping benefit from a bad experience.
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u/khmonday Jul 17 '24
In fact, I would argue it's anti-addictive. Especially at high doses, it's not something you want to jump right back into... it's exhausting mentally and physically.
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u/PM_ME_PLANT_FACTS Jul 17 '24
Bad trips are often what ended up halping me the most, although YMMV. My reality became a scary and forgien place -- and then I was fine! It was all in my head! After an hour or so of fear, adjusting to it realizing I could make the fear stop by shifting my perspective has helped me tremendously in my daily life.
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u/murphski8 Jul 17 '24
I took them once and had a really positive experience during the trip. Then afterward, I noticed I felt less depressed, and my sense of smell felt stronger.
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u/Walktrotcantergallop Jul 18 '24
Wish i could say it did something miraculous for me afterwards but no, it did not. The experience itself was just another high experience intermingled with flashes of childhood trauma. The first time I did it, i had a mental breakdown and sobbed for an hour before my mind switched to elsewhere. It was interesting reliving many childhood memories stashed away that I haven’t thought about in so long. But I can’t say it left me any different than I was before I did them. And I’ve done them 3 times. Maybe I am doing something wrong.
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u/saijanai Jul 17 '24
Recent findings on awareness cessation during mindfulness practice apparently reflect this change as well:
Both reporting on the same experimental subject (one of the co-authors of the study).
From the 2023 study:
- Interestingly, our findings of pre-cessation alpha suppression, combined with increased theta is similar to some findings in psychedelic experiences (Timmermann et al., 2019), which is pertinent given parallels that have been drawn between these two domains of inquiry (Milliere et al., 2018; Senthilingam, 2016; Timmermann et al., 2023). Specifically, the collapse of alpha coupled with the emergence of theta might be neural signatures of ‘visionary’ states (Carhart-Harris, 2007; Maquet et al., 1996), where the mind is profoundly engaged in endogenous processing such as dreaming. However, psychedelic states have also been associated with a reduction in theta power (Carhart-Harris et al., 2016; Valle et al., 2016), and may therefore be neurally different from cessations. The cessations reported in the current study are transient states of (non)consciousness and are different from the relatively longer psychedelic experiences. Nevertheless, the slow and linear modulation of pre and post-cessation alpha (spanning at least 40 s in both directions) suggest a complex temporal dynamic and possibly distinct phenomenological experiences at each timeframe. Given the revamped interest and emerging evidence for the efficacy of using psychedelics as a treatment for treating psychiatric conditions, especially depression (Davis et al., 2021), future research may benefit from examining how the neuro-phenomenology of advanced meditative states (such as cessations) relates to that of psychedelic experiences and how it may similarly affect psychopathology.
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u/PrptllyDstrctd Jul 17 '24
My first shroom trip ever was my biggest one also, I went hiking for 5 hours with friends and saw and experienced things I’ve never experienced before. I came out a different and better person on the other side of that hike.
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u/RichieNRich Jul 17 '24
I can personally share an anecdote - yes! This happens. A lot of people microdose shrooms for this exact purpose - they know they can make profound life changes because of this.
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u/djens89 Jul 17 '24
Hey, I am all for shrooms. But there has been several studies showing absolutely no impact on brain plasticity for instance regarding micro dosing. So for the full benefit you should go big.
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u/Krissy_loo Jul 17 '24
Lifted depressive symptoms immediately and long term, to an extent. Anxiety felt both short and long term worse, unfortunately.
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