Never did any type of psychedelics. You don't read much about "death by misadventure" associated with them though. I'm curious about this.
Alcohol, for example, is pretty famous for clouding judgement, reducing inhibition, and so on. Such that otherwise rational people drive intoxicated, get into fights, fall asleep in inappropriate places, fall off of and into things, etc.
Psychedelics obviously cause you to hallucinate. So why don't I hear about more accidents? Does they seem to leave your common sense, judgement, etc, in place?
The hallucination affected by psychedelics such as mushrooms isn't what you might expect. It's not a fully synthetic kind of "i now see an object that is not actually there". There won't be a floating pink elephant in the middle of the room.
Instead the effect at most normal doses (3.5g) is more that the walls and floors seem to take on a slightly ephemeral breathing characteristic. You may see patterns in things of varying complexity and intensity. The patterns may seem to shift and meld into eachother in a kind of loop... Psychonaut wiki[0] has several approximations of varying quality, a lot of the gifs in particular (the cat lying on the couch and the wolf drinking) resonate with me.
Sensory input can also include audio hallucinations, as well as perceptions that are simply normally filtered out of our experience by our brains--a sense of the organs inside your body, or the teeth in your mouth, or whatever.
A lot of the effects are mental, prompting often amusing and revelatory departures from your normal thought patterns. Everything old is new again. You may find yourself deeply examining the complexity of your hands, or the bizarre fact that we're not always "like this", or in deep awe of the staggering complexity of civilization or the chemical machines that are our bodies. That kind of thing.
The realization that we collectively have no idea what we're doing here, that a whole lot of what we believe to be real and permanent is imaginary and temporary, and that there are no rules to life, no winners, that we should take care of nature and each other, and that you should follow your muse to do what you find interesting and beautiful.
Media portrayal of this varies but some shows do hit it quite on the head, actually Mad Men has an interesting trip episode that understates the visual component and emphasizes the mental[1]. Broad city's was particularly colorful and fun (S4e4, full ep. isn't on youtube).
Some media can give you a bit of a taste of the experience, others grossly exaggerate it or flat out misrepresent it. You know how it goes.
Bad things do happen but hallucinogens tend to make you just not want to do misadventurous things. Like “I’d like to go walk to the store on the corner and get a sandwich, but that seems like it would be a little too intense right now” is a common sort of thought. Yes driving would be quite dangerous but it’s usually also quite an undesirable experience and your reason just isn’t so inhibited like with alcohol or many other kinds of drugs.
People drink alcohol and then try to do things like catch a subway train to get home - possibly while still drinking more. Psychedelic users don’t really behave this way. If you’re planning to trip so hard that you can’t actually see reality anymore, people plan for this and do it in a safe space.
People also dose their trips - they know how much they’ll be taking that day. With alcohol, it seems people just keep pouring more down their throats as they get drunker.
> Psychedelics obviously cause you to hallucinate. So why don't I hear about more accidents? Does they seem to leave your common sense, judgement, etc, in place?
I have a group of friends in the medical field in emergency rooms.
They actually see a lot of people coming through the doors with psychedelic-induced issues, either directly or by injuring themselves.
Higher psychedelic doses tend to be relatively debilitating, though, so it somewhat limits what people can do on them. Sadly this means many of the accidents are more likely to progress to death because the person isn't thinking clearly enough to extract themself from the situation (drowning, house on fire, weather exposure, lost in the woods, etc.)
I remember trying to imagine what it would be like before ever having taken any. Even the word "hallucinate" is misleading here. It's much more involved than that. It's also specific to the compounds and how they act on your body. They're not all the same, although similar molecules are similar. Specifically from tryptamines (ayahuasca/DMT, psilocybin, LSD, morning glory, etc) you don't hear about crazy accidents because they don't "do that" to you, they're not like that. You'd have to experience them to really understand, but I wouldn't say they leave your judgment in tact in the way you'd expect, but they do leave it in tact in the sense that matters, you're probably not going to find yourself running naked down the street from taking mushrooms or thinking you can fly and jumping off a building.
Once, I ate 9 grams of dried shrooms, which is something like 3-4x the average dosage and almost double of what's called an heroic dose.
I went into the most intense trip I ever had. During the trip, I called a friend because I was kinda scared, he said that if I hadn't told him about the shrooms, he would've thought I was completely sober.
Now, give me a couple of beers and I'll be slurring in no time.
1) They’re not addictive in the classic sense where people are habituated and have to take them every day.
2) As far as I know there’s no straightforward way to test for them and I’d have to assume people who are high on psychedelics that get into an accident aren’t excited to volunteer the information.
People with certain conditions should stay away from psychedelics.
Having said that, as others said a normal experience does not include hallucinations of the cliche "see weird crazy things that aren't there" variety. Instead you get more of an experience from patterns, music seems richer, colours deeper, etc.
Our brain dulls reality for us as a evolutionary benefit to allow us to focus our brainpower only on changes/unique things (e.g. the predator sneaking up in our periphery). Shrooms roll that back a bit so suddenly the pattern on a blanket, the branches on a tree, or the backing track in a piece of music, or even the varying white points of lights, comes front and center. In many ways it's like experiencing things with fresh eyes and ears, and that really is the delight of the experience, de-jading our senses.
This can be a disadvantage if you're doing something safety critical and suddenly you're amazed how you never noticed the features of some thing, distracting your attention. No one should ever drive or do dangerous things under the influence. The evolutionary benefit allows us to focus attention in a way that keeps us and those around us safe.
But from a judgment perspective, I am a fairly average chess player (I mean among active players), and under the influence of shrooms I play at the same level as not. I manage time as well, etc. I have programmed some critical code that I later marvel over on shrooms. This is wholly different from under the influence of alcohol, for instance, where my ability drops precipitously.
This is a great resource to anyone interested in psychedelics in general. I've only done psychedelics twice in my lifetime, both with the same friend, and both times NOT in ideal scenarios (because we were both tripping without a sober person trip-sitting us). I would like to warn anyone interested that *tripping is risky if you suffer from high anxiety or OCD*.
My first trip was an incredible experience, I couldn't wait for my next chance to trip. Unfortunately, my second trip went south very fast; I became very anxious and I started having fears that I would unreasonably kill myself or murder my friend. What I didn't know at the time was that I suffered from "Harm OCD" and that the psychedelics were magnifying my OCD tenfold, and thus triggered a horrendous panic attack that wouldn't end until the effects of the drugs wore off.
Hmm, I worry about the doses listed. 1.6g of potent caps will get you right fucked. If you haven't done them before and are planning on having a couple drinks and socializing etc I recommend no more than 0.5g (for at least 1.5hrs) then re-access from there.
I love this. This was me in 2017 and following the white rabbit led to a most spectacular year. It really is a birth right, and people chosing ‘no’ are really missing out on a fundamental aspect of being alive.
On another note, I always love psych threads on HN. High quality posts all around.
I feel like I'm alone in this, but I don't like mushrooms. I usually have unpleasant body effects, and I don't like the trip generally. I'm fairly confident in my ability to have dosed as responsibly as possible with a biological product. Usually, though, I just feel weird and uncomfortable for 10. LSD, by comparison, is positively therapeutic for me.
My experience is that LSD, when good, is great, but when bad, can be disastrous. Mushrooms, while not as crisp and euphoric as LSD, don't seem to ever leave me scarred, even with large doses. I'll be laughing about a bad trip on mushrooms after I come down, but will be left unable to function in society for 6 months after a bad trip on LSD.
Exact opposite for me. LSD is nice, but the visuals can be overwhelming. The visuals on mushrooms, for me are more “organic” I guess, and the mental state more natural. I haven’t done either in over a decade, but that’s what I remember. I used to do a heroic dose of mushrooms once a week - the feelings of euphoria once you peek and the subtle visuals were amazing.
It’s also possible to go to sleep on mushrooms once you’re at the end of your trip, as the trip is really a lot shorter. I remember lying awake in my bed on LSD with the room melting around me, wondering if it would ever end, just wishing that I could go to sleep.
Edit: As far as being alone with your experience - I had a lot of friends that preferred LSD over mushrooms. It’s really a personal preference as to which one suits you best.
I did 2g of dried shrooms about a week ago, having almost no prior experience.
It was fun - I was seeing funny things, my friends looked funny, I laughed a lot, was a lot more talkative and social.
My only issue was a tension headache which started about when the first effects came on and was even worse the day after, lashing until about 24 hours after the mushrooms were taken. My friends did not get the headache.
Otherwise, while I found the experience fun, and I'd do it again if it wasn't for the headache, I really can't fathom how people describe it as one of the most profound experiences of their lives.
I’ve done LSD a few times, maybe a handful, and mild doses of shrooms maybe 3 times.
On higher doses of LSD (> 1 tab), I tend to get a recurring fear and visual manifestation of bugs (spiders, specially). When I’m outside on a walk while tripping I tend to be hyper-conscious of bugs and the noises they’re making. Any thoughts on why and how to deal with this? It tends to have a very negative effect on my trips but it doesn’t always happen. Just stick to lower doses?
Tripsafe, Erowid, psychonaut and r/drugs are among the best ressources the web has been able to produce: thousands of actual trip reports, and empirically tested Risk Reductions procedures withtout stigma or judgement.
Dont do drugs as a illegal thing that give you the thrill of being a bad boy. Take a scientifi approach of risk evaluation, read testimonies and reports and ensure your own safety, as you would do for something like diving and skydiving.
Also never do drugs "because it makes you feel better when you are sad".
Keep in mind that “harm reduction” material shouldn’t be interpreted as a guide to avoiding all potential negative consequences.
When it comes to psychedelics, the pendulum of popular opinion has swung from an extreme of “extremely bad for you” to “actually good for you” but neither extreme is good, IMO.
It’s worth reading some of the material about how psychedelic users are weirdly prone to picking up strange beliefs. Not everyone of course, but even a large number of psychedelic researchers who were supposedly doing it the “right way” were still walking away with bizarre and irrational beliefs: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psyched...
These belief-shifting outcomes aren’t mentioned in harm reduction guides. In many cases, they’re actually celebrated by users with an implicit assumption that all belief changes from psychedelics must be inherently good. I think it’s important to understand that thoughts and feelings imparted by psychedelics aren’t real and may likely be entirely meaningless.
It’s also important to know that the thoughts and feelings and experiences induced by psychedelics aren’t necessarily entirely positive. The negative anecdotes tend to get lost among the hyperbole about psychedelics producing magical experiences, but it’s not hard to find stories about difficult trips or trips that induced long-lasting negative mental states on Internet forums. They tend to be downvote, ignored, or explained away by blaming the victim for doing it wrong. However, it is a very real and not uncommon possibility, which is why harm reduction guides emphasize the need for sitters to monitor the user and why every psychedelic research study had included 10X as much therapy sessions as psychedelic sessions.
Responses to your comment are contrary, but my anecdata: Just after I moved away from a particular social scene, a bunch of close friends in it got very into psychedelics. Weekly usage or more frequent, all different kinds of che,ical (‘pure’ lsd, street acid, shrooms, DMT, RCs, etc.)
Many of them did adopt some real wacky beliefs that they have held onto many years past their use. ‘Radicality’ of belief seemed proportional to volume of use. I’m talking Q-anon levels of delusion and beyond. They all felt they were in touch with greater truths and pitied me and my judgement; my self-restriction of perception. They have a lot of flowery language about how I can’t know what I can’t see that you have to be some sort of logician to parse.
In one case, I have watched this ‘enlightenment’ morph over the years from communicationg with beings from beyond the veil to potentially violent political extremism. The guy has been sober for years but low-key views all of his actions and work through a lens of ‘ultimate battle of cosmic good and evil’. Naturally ‘good’ cosmically aligns with whatever his interests at that time are.
If you’re a young person reading this: taking psychedelics a couple times is an interesting experience, perhaps worthwhile. But I’m real damn certain that the ‘enlightenment’ is basically being high. Drunk on a false sense of peace with the universe which exists only as a malfunction in your brain’s wiring. Beware people who tout those effects. They are out of touch with reality.
*I have read there is clinical potential to help PTSD sufferers. I’m not denying this. But 99% of usage is not happening is carefully, scientifically studied and controlled situations. Keeping a trip journal is not scientific, even if you have a chem phd.
When reading advice before my last trip, it occurred to me there's a lot of fear-mongering around psychedelics due to judgment.
People judging experiences as positive/negative distracts from what's going on. Simply labeling challenging-to-accept experiences as "bad" and large doses as "heroic" is enough to establish a distracting delusion. It was upon realizing this that I decided I understood how to approach the mushrooms for my last trip:
4g of the mushrooms were measured out by someone. Another unknown and (visibly less seeming) amount was gifted to me by someone else. At first, I was torn on whether to take just the amount measured out or to take more. Upon reading a bit of advice to remind me about how to navigate mushroom journeys, I remembered we can't KNOW anything (like how much mushrooms by weight was in front of me) and also taking the unknown amount was completely in line with my values of courage, embracing uncertainty, and deep analysis.
Most of the harm reduction guidelines seem to be designed for people who are living in a society that's automated judgment of experience and haven't unlearned that, yet.
> “thoughts and feelings imparted by psychedelics aren’t real...”
I mean, in what possible way are they “less real” than thoughts and feelings imparted by any other cause? This is your body, doing the thing in reaponse to a stimulus. This may be an atypical stimulus generating very different than usual responses, but they’re certainly real
> Not everyone of course, but even a large number of psychedelic researchers who were supposedly doing it the “right way” were still walking away with bizarre and irrational beliefs: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psyched...
That article gives examples of folks who most definitely were not using psychedelics safety. Timothy Leary is famous for his controversial experiments.
Moreover, LSD and mushrooms are often conflated in discussions like this, but it should be noted that the two drugs have widely different outcomes and safe usage parameters.
I grew some last Spring but have been too chicken since to try them. They're dried, but I don't know if they're dried enough. Does anyone know if there's any additional risk if they've gotten at all rotten?
Bacterial infection in shrooms typically smells like feet. Naturally they smell a bit like farts when you're eating then (but are mostly odorless when dried proper). I'd avoid them if the former and tolerate them if the latter.
They bruise blue (and it's hard to pick them without bruising the stems) which can look nearly black when dried. This can make them look moldy when they aren't. If they're actually moldy I'd toss them.
When I used to grow I settled on letting them sit on a grate with a fan blowing at them for a few days (the air is dry here, ymmv), then I'd store them with desiccant packets. They should be crispy like potato chips, no mushyness.
As for trepidation, that's understandable. I'd start with a super light dose (.5 g) at first just to see what you're dealing with. I'm glad I've had potent trips in the past (I usually find 3.5 g is enough, but it'll vary by batch and by human), but these days I usually dose lightly.
You would probably know if they were rotten—smell and/or looks would be really off. As for whether they're dry, they're dry enough if they break apart easily—they should crack, not bend.
There's also no such thing as a minimum dose. People have found benefits with very small amounts (1/20g) if you're just curious—it literally cannot hurt.
If there is a contamination then the risk is up to what contaminated them, but if they are just dried then the psilocin(1) breaks down eventually leaving you with just the psilocybin.
I had a stroke a few months ago, resulting in some long-lasting effects in my visual field. I have read reports that mushrooms can help the brain develop new connections; and I'd like to see if they can help improve my vision. But I have no idea where to get shrooms, how much to dose, etc. Any tips?
As said, grow your own. No need to deal with risky characters, you'll know exactly what you have, requires very little space, low risk as long as you can keep your lips zipped. It's about 6 weeks from inoculation of spores to first harvest, and the total investment to get started can be about $100, most of that for one-time expenses. Spores are legal to buy in most (47) states, and can be ordered from the open internet. If you're in one of the 3 non-legal states, or a non-legal country, there are online spore print exchanges. After buying once, you can propagate from your own spore prints, or from clones.
I would not rely on Reddit for your cultivation advice. Try shroomery.org, an old school web 1.0 forum that's been around since 1997. People who have participated there for years and are recognized as experts are marked with a "Trusted Cultivator" badge. Yes, it is actually possible to grow shrooms on Uncle Ben's precooked microwavable rice packets, but it is not a recommended practice due to high percent of batches lost to mold/bacterial contamination before the spores can germinate. It's just too wet of a substrate and doesn't have adequate airflow for oxygen that the mycelium needs to grow. I have tried it even though I usually use more advanced techniques, and lost 4 of 8 bags to contamination, even though I used above average sterile handling methods.
The PF Tek method is considered a reliable method for beginners that minimizes the equipment you need to buy, and is recommend in the shroomery.org's "getting started" sticky thread: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/2442017... The thread also has links to spore vendors who have been vetted as reliable.
There is a also a discussion forum on the site for those who choose to use shrooms medicinally, including microdosing, recommended micro/macro dosages and dosing practices, etc.
Look into growing them from uncle Ben’s rice. Doesn’t get easier. Spores can be legally bought online in most states and no special equipment is necessary.
Just plan on doing a triple batch as without proper lab equipment, the chance of contamination is higher.
I know lots of people will warn you about this stuff but with the caveat that every person is different: I have friends with high anxiety and all these things. We trip together quite pleasantly and enjoyably.
What you need to know is that it will make you dumb and stupid, and you'll sit there giggling to yourself incapable of any coherent thought, like a drooling idiot. At least that's what it'll look like from the outside. From the inside, you'll feel like you've opened a door to a magical land of true understanding, like the veneer of convention has peeled off the world and you can finally see the underlying superstruture of reality. So not only do you turn into a drooling idiot, you turn into a delusional drooling idiot.
And then it takes over your life because it takes days to really get down from those dizzying heights of sudden chemical revelation, only you don't realise you're still high so you still think you really made all those lofty realisations. Then you go and have some more because you 're still incapable of rational thought and who's going to stop you anyway? It can be years before something breaks you out of this vivious cycle of making yourself stupid and being too stupid to understand how stupid you have become as a consequence.
So don't do it. Life's too short. Go read a book. Go learn a craft. Go get a hobby. Learn woodcutting. Learn to bake. Learn to cook. Have more sex. Maybe get a degree or two. But don't do shit that burns your brain because you only get one brain. And it is very easy to damage irreparably.
This comment is just plain wrong.
It has been even studied and proven scientifically that for example psilocin, one of the main components of the psilocybe family of mushrooms promotes neuroplasticity and neuritogenesis (Neuritogenesis is a key process required during development of the mammalian brain). [1]
So, the completely reverse of what you said is true, mushrooms can actually promote repairing the brain and strengthen new, more healthy connections within it.
Counterpoint: psychedelics helped me overcome a lifelong problem with social anxiety and helped me to overcome fear of dancing in public. Over a decade later I can still say that the changes they made have had a profound and long-lasting positive impact on my life.
[+] [-] tyingq|4 years ago|reply
Alcohol, for example, is pretty famous for clouding judgement, reducing inhibition, and so on. Such that otherwise rational people drive intoxicated, get into fights, fall asleep in inappropriate places, fall off of and into things, etc.
Psychedelics obviously cause you to hallucinate. So why don't I hear about more accidents? Does they seem to leave your common sense, judgement, etc, in place?
[+] [-] c54|4 years ago|reply
Instead the effect at most normal doses (3.5g) is more that the walls and floors seem to take on a slightly ephemeral breathing characteristic. You may see patterns in things of varying complexity and intensity. The patterns may seem to shift and meld into eachother in a kind of loop... Psychonaut wiki[0] has several approximations of varying quality, a lot of the gifs in particular (the cat lying on the couch and the wolf drinking) resonate with me.
Sensory input can also include audio hallucinations, as well as perceptions that are simply normally filtered out of our experience by our brains--a sense of the organs inside your body, or the teeth in your mouth, or whatever.
A lot of the effects are mental, prompting often amusing and revelatory departures from your normal thought patterns. Everything old is new again. You may find yourself deeply examining the complexity of your hands, or the bizarre fact that we're not always "like this", or in deep awe of the staggering complexity of civilization or the chemical machines that are our bodies. That kind of thing.
The realization that we collectively have no idea what we're doing here, that a whole lot of what we believe to be real and permanent is imaginary and temporary, and that there are no rules to life, no winners, that we should take care of nature and each other, and that you should follow your muse to do what you find interesting and beautiful.
Media portrayal of this varies but some shows do hit it quite on the head, actually Mad Men has an interesting trip episode that understates the visual component and emphasizes the mental[1]. Broad city's was particularly colorful and fun (S4e4, full ep. isn't on youtube).
Some media can give you a bit of a taste of the experience, others grossly exaggerate it or flat out misrepresent it. You know how it goes.
[0] https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Visual_effects_-_Psychedelic... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWlKCfSPcU
[+] [-] celticninja|4 years ago|reply
Of course I'm reminded of Bill Hicks who cautioned, "when on drugs, if you think you can fly, take off from the ground"
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acchow|4 years ago|reply
People also dose their trips - they know how much they’ll be taking that day. With alcohol, it seems people just keep pouring more down their throats as they get drunker.
[+] [-] BrianOnHN|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
I have a group of friends in the medical field in emergency rooms.
They actually see a lot of people coming through the doors with psychedelic-induced issues, either directly or by injuring themselves.
Higher psychedelic doses tend to be relatively debilitating, though, so it somewhat limits what people can do on them. Sadly this means many of the accidents are more likely to progress to death because the person isn't thinking clearly enough to extract themself from the situation (drowning, house on fire, weather exposure, lost in the woods, etc.)
[+] [-] beej71|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klyrs|4 years ago|reply
I learned from these stories: don't drive on hallucinogens, and don't trip when you've got real-life responsibilities.
[+] [-] toomanydoubts|4 years ago|reply
Now, give me a couple of beers and I'll be slurring in no time.
[+] [-] CPLX|4 years ago|reply
2) As far as I know there’s no straightforward way to test for them and I’d have to assume people who are high on psychedelics that get into an accident aren’t excited to volunteer the information.
[+] [-] jinjin2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] defaultname|4 years ago|reply
When stories do come out, they tend to be over the top. For instance-
https://globalnews.ca/news/4735129/thomas-chan-guilty-mansla...
People with certain conditions should stay away from psychedelics.
Having said that, as others said a normal experience does not include hallucinations of the cliche "see weird crazy things that aren't there" variety. Instead you get more of an experience from patterns, music seems richer, colours deeper, etc.
Our brain dulls reality for us as a evolutionary benefit to allow us to focus our brainpower only on changes/unique things (e.g. the predator sneaking up in our periphery). Shrooms roll that back a bit so suddenly the pattern on a blanket, the branches on a tree, or the backing track in a piece of music, or even the varying white points of lights, comes front and center. In many ways it's like experiencing things with fresh eyes and ears, and that really is the delight of the experience, de-jading our senses.
This can be a disadvantage if you're doing something safety critical and suddenly you're amazed how you never noticed the features of some thing, distracting your attention. No one should ever drive or do dangerous things under the influence. The evolutionary benefit allows us to focus attention in a way that keeps us and those around us safe.
But from a judgment perspective, I am a fairly average chess player (I mean among active players), and under the influence of shrooms I play at the same level as not. I manage time as well, etc. I have programmed some critical code that I later marvel over on shrooms. This is wholly different from under the influence of alcohol, for instance, where my ability drops precipitously.
[+] [-] toastercat|4 years ago|reply
My first trip was an incredible experience, I couldn't wait for my next chance to trip. Unfortunately, my second trip went south very fast; I became very anxious and I started having fears that I would unreasonably kill myself or murder my friend. What I didn't know at the time was that I suffered from "Harm OCD" and that the psychedelics were magnifying my OCD tenfold, and thus triggered a horrendous panic attack that wouldn't end until the effects of the drugs wore off.
[+] [-] stevehiehn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] upstarter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaky|4 years ago|reply
On another note, I always love psych threads on HN. High quality posts all around.
[+] [-] meepmorp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokumei|4 years ago|reply
It’s also possible to go to sleep on mushrooms once you’re at the end of your trip, as the trip is really a lot shorter. I remember lying awake in my bed on LSD with the room melting around me, wondering if it would ever end, just wishing that I could go to sleep.
Edit: As far as being alone with your experience - I had a lot of friends that preferred LSD over mushrooms. It’s really a personal preference as to which one suits you best.
[+] [-] shroomer|4 years ago|reply
It was fun - I was seeing funny things, my friends looked funny, I laughed a lot, was a lot more talkative and social.
My only issue was a tension headache which started about when the first effects came on and was even worse the day after, lashing until about 24 hours after the mushrooms were taken. My friends did not get the headache.
Otherwise, while I found the experience fun, and I'd do it again if it wasn't for the headache, I really can't fathom how people describe it as one of the most profound experiences of their lives.
[+] [-] threwaway7880|4 years ago|reply
On higher doses of LSD (> 1 tab), I tend to get a recurring fear and visual manifestation of bugs (spiders, specially). When I’m outside on a walk while tripping I tend to be hyper-conscious of bugs and the noises they’re making. Any thoughts on why and how to deal with this? It tends to have a very negative effect on my trips but it doesn’t always happen. Just stick to lower doses?
[+] [-] mam4|4 years ago|reply
Dont do drugs as a illegal thing that give you the thrill of being a bad boy. Take a scientifi approach of risk evaluation, read testimonies and reports and ensure your own safety, as you would do for something like diving and skydiving.
Also never do drugs "because it makes you feel better when you are sad".
Dont hesitate to ask more question
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
When it comes to psychedelics, the pendulum of popular opinion has swung from an extreme of “extremely bad for you” to “actually good for you” but neither extreme is good, IMO.
It’s worth reading some of the material about how psychedelic users are weirdly prone to picking up strange beliefs. Not everyone of course, but even a large number of psychedelic researchers who were supposedly doing it the “right way” were still walking away with bizarre and irrational beliefs: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psyched...
These belief-shifting outcomes aren’t mentioned in harm reduction guides. In many cases, they’re actually celebrated by users with an implicit assumption that all belief changes from psychedelics must be inherently good. I think it’s important to understand that thoughts and feelings imparted by psychedelics aren’t real and may likely be entirely meaningless.
It’s also important to know that the thoughts and feelings and experiences induced by psychedelics aren’t necessarily entirely positive. The negative anecdotes tend to get lost among the hyperbole about psychedelics producing magical experiences, but it’s not hard to find stories about difficult trips or trips that induced long-lasting negative mental states on Internet forums. They tend to be downvote, ignored, or explained away by blaming the victim for doing it wrong. However, it is a very real and not uncommon possibility, which is why harm reduction guides emphasize the need for sitters to monitor the user and why every psychedelic research study had included 10X as much therapy sessions as psychedelic sessions.
[+] [-] coffeemig|4 years ago|reply
Many of them did adopt some real wacky beliefs that they have held onto many years past their use. ‘Radicality’ of belief seemed proportional to volume of use. I’m talking Q-anon levels of delusion and beyond. They all felt they were in touch with greater truths and pitied me and my judgement; my self-restriction of perception. They have a lot of flowery language about how I can’t know what I can’t see that you have to be some sort of logician to parse.
In one case, I have watched this ‘enlightenment’ morph over the years from communicationg with beings from beyond the veil to potentially violent political extremism. The guy has been sober for years but low-key views all of his actions and work through a lens of ‘ultimate battle of cosmic good and evil’. Naturally ‘good’ cosmically aligns with whatever his interests at that time are.
If you’re a young person reading this: taking psychedelics a couple times is an interesting experience, perhaps worthwhile. But I’m real damn certain that the ‘enlightenment’ is basically being high. Drunk on a false sense of peace with the universe which exists only as a malfunction in your brain’s wiring. Beware people who tout those effects. They are out of touch with reality.
*I have read there is clinical potential to help PTSD sufferers. I’m not denying this. But 99% of usage is not happening is carefully, scientifically studied and controlled situations. Keeping a trip journal is not scientific, even if you have a chem phd.
[+] [-] crawfordcomeaux|4 years ago|reply
People judging experiences as positive/negative distracts from what's going on. Simply labeling challenging-to-accept experiences as "bad" and large doses as "heroic" is enough to establish a distracting delusion. It was upon realizing this that I decided I understood how to approach the mushrooms for my last trip:
4g of the mushrooms were measured out by someone. Another unknown and (visibly less seeming) amount was gifted to me by someone else. At first, I was torn on whether to take just the amount measured out or to take more. Upon reading a bit of advice to remind me about how to navigate mushroom journeys, I remembered we can't KNOW anything (like how much mushrooms by weight was in front of me) and also taking the unknown amount was completely in line with my values of courage, embracing uncertainty, and deep analysis.
Most of the harm reduction guidelines seem to be designed for people who are living in a society that's automated judgment of experience and haven't unlearned that, yet.
[+] [-] mattcwilson|4 years ago|reply
I mean, in what possible way are they “less real” than thoughts and feelings imparted by any other cause? This is your body, doing the thing in reaponse to a stimulus. This may be an atypical stimulus generating very different than usual responses, but they’re certainly real
[+] [-] mam4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theli0nheart|4 years ago|reply
That article gives examples of folks who most definitely were not using psychedelics safety. Timothy Leary is famous for his controversial experiments.
Moreover, LSD and mushrooms are often conflated in discussions like this, but it should be noted that the two drugs have widely different outcomes and safe usage parameters.
[+] [-] hirundo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __MatrixMan__|4 years ago|reply
They bruise blue (and it's hard to pick them without bruising the stems) which can look nearly black when dried. This can make them look moldy when they aren't. If they're actually moldy I'd toss them.
When I used to grow I settled on letting them sit on a grate with a fan blowing at them for a few days (the air is dry here, ymmv), then I'd store them with desiccant packets. They should be crispy like potato chips, no mushyness.
As for trepidation, that's understandable. I'd start with a super light dose (.5 g) at first just to see what you're dealing with. I'm glad I've had potent trips in the past (I usually find 3.5 g is enough, but it'll vary by batch and by human), but these days I usually dose lightly.
[+] [-] theli0nheart|4 years ago|reply
There's also no such thing as a minimum dose. People have found benefits with very small amounts (1/20g) if you're just curious—it literally cannot hurt.
[+] [-] monetus|4 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocin
[+] [-] hidden_dude|4 years ago|reply
I had a stroke a few months ago, resulting in some long-lasting effects in my visual field. I have read reports that mushrooms can help the brain develop new connections; and I'd like to see if they can help improve my vision. But I have no idea where to get shrooms, how much to dose, etc. Any tips?
[+] [-] rt_hidden_dude|4 years ago|reply
I would not rely on Reddit for your cultivation advice. Try shroomery.org, an old school web 1.0 forum that's been around since 1997. People who have participated there for years and are recognized as experts are marked with a "Trusted Cultivator" badge. Yes, it is actually possible to grow shrooms on Uncle Ben's precooked microwavable rice packets, but it is not a recommended practice due to high percent of batches lost to mold/bacterial contamination before the spores can germinate. It's just too wet of a substrate and doesn't have adequate airflow for oxygen that the mycelium needs to grow. I have tried it even though I usually use more advanced techniques, and lost 4 of 8 bags to contamination, even though I used above average sterile handling methods.
The PF Tek method is considered a reliable method for beginners that minimizes the equipment you need to buy, and is recommend in the shroomery.org's "getting started" sticky thread: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/2442017... The thread also has links to spore vendors who have been vetted as reliable.
There is a also a discussion forum on the site for those who choose to use shrooms medicinally, including microdosing, recommended micro/macro dosages and dosing practices, etc.
[+] [-] temp0826|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmmeff|4 years ago|reply
Just plan on doing a triple batch as without proper lab equipment, the chance of contamination is higher.
[+] [-] ryanianian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beervirus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] a_throwaway_3|4 years ago|reply
And then it takes over your life because it takes days to really get down from those dizzying heights of sudden chemical revelation, only you don't realise you're still high so you still think you really made all those lofty realisations. Then you go and have some more because you 're still incapable of rational thought and who's going to stop you anyway? It can be years before something breaks you out of this vivious cycle of making yourself stupid and being too stupid to understand how stupid you have become as a consequence.
So don't do it. Life's too short. Go read a book. Go learn a craft. Go get a hobby. Learn woodcutting. Learn to bake. Learn to cook. Have more sex. Maybe get a degree or two. But don't do shit that burns your brain because you only get one brain. And it is very easy to damage irreparably.
[+] [-] inDigiNeous|4 years ago|reply
So, the completely reverse of what you said is true, mushrooms can actually promote repairing the brain and strengthen new, more healthy connections within it.
* [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082376/
[+] [-] SOLAR_FIELDS|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] celticninja|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattcwilson|4 years ago|reply
I think you are right that particular substances have immediate, serious, irreversible harm to your brain.
Psilocybin is not one of those substances.
[+] [-] aqme28|4 years ago|reply
Life's too short not to at least try something new and unique and harmless, no? It only costs you an afternoon.
[+] [-] sib301|4 years ago|reply