Legal US use only in Oregon and in research settings but likely to get FDA approval soon. Maybe in’24. Australia has approved it recently. Research data looks good.
Any personal experiences?
A nephew is in Denver where it’s “legal”. He has been microdosing for a couple of years and finds it very beneficial.
I tried it once. I would place my experience as recreational/non-professional therapeutic. It was done in a very caring environment at home after hearing about the positive reports and it was something I wanted to experience, along with experiencing a ‘trip’.
The trip itself was awesome and I would really like to live in ‘mushroom land’, but there is no draw to repeat it. I understand that trips can also be bad, and being in a caring environment can lessen the chances of that and also help one if that happens. The effects happen in waves, lasting 4-5 hours. Some find it too long and wanting to get off the mushroom train early, but want it or not you are in for the duration. I had enough to cause minor hallucinations (which were great btw) which is what I wanted, I understand that most therapeutic doses are smaller though can also have long lasting positive effects. There was really no recovery and felt fine after, actually I felt good from it.
It also has helped me see things differently and opened my mind to see that I am in control of more things then I realized, I saw destructive patterns in my life and the way to end them and also it was my choice. I realizes that though others mistreated me and tried to limit me, it was my reactions that held me back, not their actions. It also restored a degree of child like thinking and wonderment of the world and my environment. I realized that I was thinking in ways I have not for a very long time. That has been a lasting effect.
Thanks for that excellent post.
My therapist has suggested that I might benefit from it. He describes his experience much like yours.
I’m prone to anxiety and panic attacks, and frankly, I’m afraid that something in mushroom land will terrify me and I won’t be able to get away fast enough. And then I won’t be able to forget the experience.
Was there anything scary about the trip?
Not mine, I welcomed it and enjoyed it immensely however:
-
My wife wanted to end it after 2 hours, yes she was enjoying it but also felt like it went on too long. She tried to sleep it off but fractal visions when she closed her eyes kept her from sleeping it off till it was over. In that it was not scary, but not positive in this respect. She also reported positive lasting effects and lower anxiety.
-
Decades earlier I had a very scary dark time in my life which in summary might be described as night terrors. Looking back at that time however I also did learn much about myself and healed many issues that transformed my life in many positive ways as I overcame the terrors and they went away. So, though that was not drug induced I would personally not hesitate for fear of a bad trip, but just try to minimize it’s chance. Even a bad trip could work out for the good I believe, and I am happy I went through that time as well (though again that was a different thing).
-
I was told the old adage "where a tree falls is a compromise between where the tree wants to land and where the lumberjack wants it to.’ In regards to how a trip could be. You do your part to influence it to the positive but in the end it’s going to be between the mushroom and you. So I would suggest bringing comfort items (I did it at home so no need), and surround yourself with such objects. But also I would have a place to explore if it goes well (I wondered around in the woods out back for a bit, but escorted). As such I went in with a very positive attitude welcoming everything, even a bad trip, and just wanted to experience what it had to offer.
Psilocybin is great. I take a rather large amount (5-7 grams of mushrooms) every 2 to 3 months. It does wonders for my mental state. They reduce, for me, depression and anxiety. Often mushrooms will lead me to solutions or realizations about things that have been kicking around in my head.
Set and Setting is very important to the use of psychoactive chemicals especially if you have no experience with them. Luckily, I have never had a ‘bad trip’ but I have had a couple of challenging ones and calm self awareness helped me get through them. Like Kanicbird says you are generally in for the whole time, like it or not. However, I have heard of some things that can end trips very quickly, but I have never tried them.
I know that LSD should not be used by anyone with a family history of schizophrenia but I don’t know if that also applies with psilocybin. I do also think that unless there is direct reason why somebody should not use psilocybin, everyone should at least once. I have even discussed it with my stepmother for my 88 year old father…
Further reading on psilocybin use - Johns Hopkins Psychedelics Research and Psilocybin Therapy
As a personal aside, if anyone does try psilocybin I can recommend watching Baraka and Samsara.
@kanicbird Did you do anything to prepare for the trip, to get into a good mindset? Did you have someone with you, and if so, were they also tripping or were they there to watch over you?
Small light breakfast (it can cause nausea, and it did very slightly in me, not an issue however, it was just more of a hint of it that I could easily ignore). I set apart that day for this a few weeks earlier and tried to set up good circumstances. But also I had the decision to abort if the mindset was not right.
Me and my wife took the trip, 2 others with mushroom experience were there who were not partaking, helping, guiding us as to what to expect.
It’d be great if we had additional, not to mention more effective treatments for major depression, especially if they had pronounced beneficial effects in the short term, as standard drug therapies typically take at least a couple weeks or more to fully kick in.
Research studies to date have mostly been small (the OP’s Johns Hopkins link involved 27 participants), or even in non-humans (one that found supposedly beneficial morphologic alterations in the brain was conducted in mice. And when you get to larger (but still limited in size) trials of psycilocybin, positive effects have been less striking (i.e. no sustained response at 12 weeks post-treatment). The history of promising drugs is littered with cases where smaller studies were positive but well-conducted large-scale clinical trials did not demonstrate significant effects.*
It hasn’t helped that some proponents engage in flowery language that is far more akin to woo than solid science.
“[Psychedelic]-assisted therapy engages the mind’s innate power to heal itself—the participants’ ‘inner healing intelligence,’” claims Dr. Mithoefer, going on to explain that “the source of the healing process is the person themselves—the psychedelic and therapists are catalysts.”
Um, sure.
But I forget - the OP wanted anecdotes, not more science. So here’s mine. Long, long ago I tried a non-psycilobin hallucinogen** - in a recreational, not medical setting. While the experience was enjoyable, the aftermath was not. I experienced a black depression that fortunately lasted only about a day. So there’s my “data” point.
The problem with soliciting anecdotes in the realm of health care is of course that they’re inherently unreliable. As long as our brains are wired to favor testimonials, they’ll continue to be popular.
*anticipating a probable rejoinder that truly large-scale trials are unlikely because the pharma profit motive isn’t there (i.e. you can’t patent psilocybin), a meme propagated by Michael Pollan - nonsense. Drug companies are eminently capable of taking basic molecules and tweaking them in patent-protected processes to result in more potent, longer-lasting and possibly safer drugs. If psycilocybin proves to be an effective anti-depressant, expect ads for Shroomhilarate™ and similar drugs to blanket the airwaves.
**various hallucinogens, including the one I took, have been touted for treating depression and other mental disorders.
Thank you!
Also, thanks, @Ike_Witt.
I have long term chronic depression.
The majority of therapies with psilocybin and the related psylocin will be “micro-dosing” rather than the “macro-dosing” that @Ike_Witt describes.
I’ve a bunch of different psychedics, both organic and inorganic (although they all fall under organic chemistry)
Psilocybin mushrooms are amongst the gentlest, even on a big dose. But if you micro-dose you are more likely to get a self induced panic attack, from nervousness, than an actual bad trip.
And I can tell you, I have had a number of bad trips!
The interesting thing about bad trips is the “observer effect”* where if you don’t panic and make it worse, you can totally have a bad trip with some of your brain going nutso, but also a part just calmly observing the nutso part, and waiting for it to end.
Unfortunately for me, my micro-dosing experience did not help with depression. But that could also be because I was macro-dosing with alcohol, a know depressant…
* I made up this phrase, for this situation. Probably someone else has written a thesis on it.
Yes. The limits of the research I am able to parse and interpret on my own.
For those who would appreciate a good balanced read, including comments about the small size of many of the studies, lack of adequate control groups, and lack of funding, here is a Nature article to peruse.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02872-9
My interest is in regards of a loved one who has been otherwise treatment resistant and quite severe inclusive of stopping ECT after too much adverse effects. Not regarding a casual for fun circumstance. The decision to proceed is already made.
Anecdotes of personal experiences are useful to me.
FWIW I place the evidence as quite promising with little downside risk done in a supportive environment with an experienced support therapist.
The Nature article, while relatively balanced, doesn’t address one elephant in the room - the likelihood that people will self-dose outside of a health care setting. Or worse, that those incapable of informed consent will be treated with psycilocybin and other psychedelics. Among the myriad disorders for which psycilocybin is touted is autism, and parents of some autistic children have used ineffective and even dangerous therapies on their kids (MMS is a prime example)*.
That’s one good reason for dialing back on the hype surrounding psycilocybin.
I also wondered how a proper control drug could be found for a psychedelic. Probably much more difficult than for an SSRI. You’ve got to know when you’re in the psycilocybin arm of the study.
Hoping for a positive outcome in DSeid’s loved one’s case.
*one of the latest to be inflicted on autistic children is
ivermectin.
So much this. I never had insanely scary dreams until recently. At 62, that’s quite a record. But I started taking CBD gummies to help me relax my injured back enough to get some real sleep. Well, I slept, but it was anything but restful with the nightmares I started having. And those were mild gummies.
Now, it is like my brain is open to any horror that wants to enter while I sleep, and it’s been almost a year since my last gummy. Now, I occasionally take half a muscle relaxer and I sleep well that night. I hate muscle relaxers generally because they make you useless, but it’s helping me at this tiny dose. So that has become my go-to.
But still depressed.
I want to try this out. I don’t know what might happen because I have no clear recollection of not being depressed. I did take something when I was a teenager that was supposed to be processed psilocybin but it didn’t seem much different than acid or the stuff that was supposed to be mescaline. Lots of stuff was supposed to be other stuff back then.
this also applies to psilocybin. no psychedelics for someone with that history.
My wife likes them for anxiety. She’ll go months without using them but then run into a lot of worries and stressors in a short amount of time and start cycling into persistent negative thoughts/worries. The trip breaks the cycle.
I’ve never felt the need for mental health. I do think they help me to “see” bad habits for what they are, and remember/recognize/prioritize the good things in life.
*Bad habits is probably the wrong term. “Unhelpful ruts” “Ingrained laziness”. I see my bad habits with or without drugs. Mushrooms show me the tiny, seemingly unrelated choices my subconscious makes to emphasize and push the bad habits. An example might be eating too much fast food. I’d know I was eating too much fast food. The trip would expose how I was sabotaging dinner clean-up and packaging leftovers in a way that would make it hard to bring an enjoyable lunch. How I wasn’t setting up my office situation to be helpful to bringing lunches. How I wasn’t giving myself enough time in the morning. How my subconscious was orchestrating a multitude of tiny choices making the choice to get fast food almost inevitable when the time came.
I hear it’s overrated.
I already know that without the help of drugs. But that knowledge didn’t stop me from having cheese enchiladas for lunch and TWO scrumptious flour tortillas. I already know I sabotage myself. I watch myself do it.
Well the thread is asking for anecdotes … is there some even second hand experience to share that your “I hear that” is based on?
Personally I both feel the data is very promising, exciting even, with proper therapeutic support, and that it is overhyped, getting a bit over the skis?
Compared to other options in severe treatment resistant depression it is very attractive. But as the Nature piece includes, with large scale use with less or no therapeutic support? Maybe not as good and anytime use expands greatly more adverse potential becomes apparent too.
I don’t expect magic despite its popular name.
I’ve been researching psilocybin for about half a year now, hoping to use it to treat my OCD, ADHD and also overall blindness/dumbness/lack-of-clarity in life. The benefits sound very promising, but there’s risk because my aunt is possibly schizo, my sister possibly bipolar, and I’m also planning to do LASIK eye surgery soon so there may be some risk of corneal neuralgia.
Other psychedelics, such as mescaline or LSD, have their own benefits too from what I’ve read but their longer trip-duration make them greater risks of triggering latent bipolar. I’ve done ketamine before, but it didn’t have any psychological benefit. It did give odd trips though, some so intense that I forgot I was an alive human being on Earth.
The legal issue makes it tricky. I live in Austin and our local DA has said he won’t prosecute drug possession of 1 gram or less. You can’t do a whole lot with 1 gram of shrooms unless it’s the most potent strain, like Penis Envy. You could certainly keep quite a bit of LSD on hand under the 1-gram limit, but there’s the issue of reagent testing (lots of fake LSD out there) and LSD being possibly more dangerous.
Legal psilocybin therapy, or attendance at a legal resort/retreat, will cost thousands of dollars and I may not have that.
One of the most interesting psilocybin tales is a man who totally turned around his life overnight and his wife complaining on Reddit because she couldn’t adjust to his good changes.