Permanent effects of magic mushrooms

Factual Questions
1

Are there any permanent negative effects of mushrooms? A friend of mine recently grew his own mushrooms and has spent many a times telling me how great they are. However, when I asked to try some, he told me that before I can, I need to look into my family history for mental disorders. According to him, mushrooms and LSD can trigger permanent depression and schizophrenia in people who have it in their family lines. Well, I dont think I have to worry about schizophrenia, but I do have manic depression in my blood. I am 18 and have not experienced any serious depression yet, but according to my friend, if I take shrooms, my depression could be triggered, and would be much worse than if I allowed nature to take its course.

I have heard great things about mushrooms and would really like to try them, but not if there is any permanent, serious, risk involved. As far as what I have heard, my friends who have tried it have all had pleasant, if not amazing experiences, and I have recently gone through some threads on here and they all seem to promote its positive effects (that thread with Homer was awe inspiring). But again, if for some reason I take some shrooms and once I come down, I want to kill myself… well not even the best trip could make that worth while. So dopers… help me out.

2

absinthe…mushrooms, what is the youth of today coming to?

3

I see little flashing lights when it’s dark, that I never did before I took them. The last time I took them was about 15 years ago, too, but the lights are still there.

4

The biggest problem with LSD and mushrooms regarding depression is if you end up in therapy, some pdocs may hold your drug history against you. As in, they will assume that your depression is largely drug-induced and only treatable via medication.

You won’t come out feeling suicidal, unless you already are. But that’s a whole different kind of trip…

I say go for it, but then again, I’m wacky as a loon.

5

I am skeptical about psychedelics as a trigger for something that is wired into someone’s brain chemistry. While it has been noted that people using psychedelics have developed schizophrenia, the usual age of onset overlaps with the age that many people start experimenting, so who can tell if the drug triggered the onset? I’m afraid that the studies just haven’t been done, so we don’t know what is causation and what is coincidence.

I don’t know anyone whose mental illness was triggered by drug use, but that just goes to show that I don’t know anyone whose mental illness was triggered by drug use.

6

I’m not aware of myself or any of my friends having any long-term reactions to any of various psychedelics. Tho we tried any and all available, shrooms were our faves.

Some of my friends have now used them off-and-on for 20 years now. Of course, maybe we are all completely insane by now and cannot tell the difference…

7

LSD was originally touted as a treatment for some forms of depression (Cary Grant underwent LSD therapy for it), but the prevailing theory about its use has changed (hard to have a therapy rooted in the use of the drug that’s been illegal since October 1966).

8

Some people can handle their drugs.

Some people cannot.

This is why we have doctors and pharmacists.

Psychedelics are a pretty heavy trip. If you eat some, you are going to go where no SonOfArizona has gone before, so to speak. You are going to spend several hours WIDE awake, with all your perceptions and normal lines of thought skewed ninety degrees. You are going to look at yourself and your entire world in ways that you have never done before.

Some people can handle that. Some people can’t. I sampled a variety of psychedelics in my youth; I particularly liked psilocybin mushrooms, due to their lack of “hangover” effects, and the fact that you can get a better clue as to dosage than you can with lab-made psychedelics.

Can’t say I ever heard of anyone who went CRAZY as a result of eating the stuff… but I knew a few who simply couldn’t handle the experience. You could say that it triggered depression, I guess.

My rule of thumb was this: If you are a control freak, can’t handle the idea of bein’ a little loosy-goosy for a while… don’t take the stuff.

If you are unhappy… depressed… angry… in ANY kind of negative state of mind… don’t take the stuff.

If you are unhappy with your life… have low self-esteem… if there is anything about yourself or your life that you do NOT like… don’t take the stuff.

…because if you do, you are going to spend the next eight to twelve hours staring at it, all locked up in the box with you, just you and the entire freakin’ universe. You can’t ignore it, and you can’t lie to yourself about it, not with the drugs screaming it at you in the Fiery Neon Words Of God.

One could call the stuff “moment of truth in a little plastic baggie.” Don’t mess with it unless you’ve got a clue where you stand. And even then, it’s a good idea to have someone flying ground control for you…

9

I have yet to see anything that shows a causative effect between psychedelics and mental illness, although it may make existing conditions worse, at least for the period immediately thereafter.

Have fun, be careful and rememer, with things like psilocybin 'shrooms, you have no real way of gauging the potency - in other words you do nto know in advance the strength of any given dosage

10

alkaloids are much scarier re you mental health

11

What they said.

I can say that shrooms had a permanent effect on me the first time I tried them: It made me look at my life REAL close and I decided to change my life because of what saw. I was a pilot, almost a CFI, and I was heading down a road to being a professional pilot. The mushrooms made me examine that path in detail and I came away from the experience thinking that being a glorified bus-driver was not what I wanted to do with my life. (Note: I still have many pilot friends who are completely happy and satisfied, but for me it would have been the wrong choice). So I changed my life. I finished my CFI just to prove that I could (the last time I flew was for my FAA checkride 10 years ago). I went back to college, got a degree in Int’l Poitical Economics, went abroad, met a foreign woman, and now live my life as an expat. I am very happy now, and I do attribute the first step of my ‘new life’ to mushrooms. They opened up some doors that were shut pretty tight.

Since then most of the times I have been on boomers has just been for fun. I guess everytime I look at my life while on them I like what I see, so I then proceed to have fun. It has been about 4 years since I did them last (maybe longer)…hmmm…A’dam is only a short hop away…

So, for you newbie types I would first read what Timothy Leary has to say about Set & Setting when it comes to new drugs. Set is what you bring to the drug- your mind set, your current physical state, etc. If you are depressed, unhappy, stressed, sick, tired, ??? then the experience will not be a positive one. Setting refers to where you do the drug and who you do it with. Being in a dance club on boomers is going to be a totally different experience than being in the middle of the Maroon Bells outside of Aspen Colorado (where I first did them). I recommend choosing your Set & Setting appropriately when it comes to mushrooms, and also would say that a sober friend who is willing to act as your ‘chaperone’ would be nice too. They can provide a link to reality if you are feeling a bit shaky. Plus it’s nice (and safer) to have someone else work the tea kettle or make a 7-11 run. I’ve done this before and people have said that it made the experience more enjoyable (I also did magic tricks and played with light sticks to make their time more interesting).

-Tcat

12

I don’t know about their ability to trigger problems in your brain that run in the family, but psychadelics like LSD and Magic Mushrooms definitely have permanent effects. Many people I know who only took a drug once, or have not been taking it for many years, still experience the hallucinations in certain situations, like jjimm describes. One man I know still has to watch green monkeys skip across the road whenever he stops at the lights in his car. Another man I’ve heard of was walking his baby in the park, before he threw himself on top of the pram to protect it from a ‘swarm of bees’. Apparantly, this was long after he’d quit taking LSD, but his wife still left him, thinking he’d been taking the drug and was lying to her.

Some people, on the other hand, experience no lasting problems. If you understand the risks involved, I’d suggest definitely only taking them with a positive mind state and with a sober friend around to watch out for you. Especially the second one; you won’t get the chance to experience permanent mental problems if you’ve already jumped off the 10th floor of a building in an attempt to fly.

13

Once again, I highly reccomend having a sober friend with you. Make sure it is someone your trust completely, and preferably someone that has experience with psychadelics.

IMHO, mushrooms can actually give a depressed (or bipolar) person perspective on their illness. For a few hours you can experience how arbitrary our brains can be, and hopefully draw conclusions about how much power you have to control your brain in everyday life.

14

I experienced psychadelics once, about ten years ago. I still have occassional hallucinations, mostly when I’m very tired.

15

Those “flashing lights” that jjimm speaks of: I used to be able to summon them “at will” – fantastic, kaleidoscopic, swirling, tumbling, intricate, infinitely detailed, pschadelic universes of colour and form, collapsing-and-being-reborn, always surprising, drowning my consciousness, losing myself completely.

That is until I experimented with pschadelic drugs.

As far as I can tell, I’ve “lost” nothing else, and maybe gained a little. It’s also possible that the two things are not causally connected. I miss it, quite a bit, really.

16

Oh, and I lost the ability to spell psychedelic. Bah!

17

Thanks for the replies. I think it may be possible that my friend was misinformed. Now before I sign off on this one, can anyone reccomend a good amount to start with? I read a lot of testemonials on the internet involving mushrooms, and it seems that nearly all the bad trips involved very high amounts eaten. I don’t think I saw one bad trip with 1.5 grams or under. Is that a good amount to take or will that not result in many hallucinatory effects? Also, since my friend grew these himself, will that make them more potent or less? Thanks.

PS: any other tips would be appreciated as well.

18

I took shrooms just a couple of days ago. They came in the form of caramel candies with the shrooms mixed in the middle of them. It tasted just like caramel candy. I tripped with a friend who also shared these candies with me. We had three candies, probably about 2 grams each. We each took 1.5 candies. He tripped, I didn’t. My friend said there was probably a gram of shrooms in it. What’s up with that?

Does body metabolism or weight have any effect on the potency of shrooms?

19

I just talked to my friend and he showed me this cite for what he was talking about -

here
Individuals with a family history of schizophrenia or early onset mental illness should be extremely careful because mushrooms have been known to trigger latent psychological and mental problems.
What do you guys think?

20

I’d say you’re becoming a little fixated with the idea that they might do you some unknown harm. If I were you, I’d wait until that is no longer worrisome.
You want to have a positive mindset and comfortable surroundings, especially your first time.
Psychedelics are unpredictable, and no one is going to be able to tell you it’s okay or not okay for you.
I found hallucinogens to be wonderfully mind-expanding the first few times, then they later became a way to find different realities on a much more sober level. How you approach them can have everything (or maybe even nothing) to do with what you’ll find when you get there. Good luck!