How Magic Mushrooms Can Improve Your Life in the Long-Term

[cleanhippie]

psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. Here's the boring news first: ingesting psilocybin produces a mystical experience that can be quantified. "Noetic quality," for example, increased from 19.4 on a placebo to 70.6 on the highest dose used in the study. "Transcendence of space and time" increased from 18.3 to 78.2. Etc. You probably already knew that.

Here's the somewhat more interesting news: psilocybin can sometimes produces bad trips full of fear and anxiety, but the researchers have also figured out how to minimize this. Partly this was due to the experimental design: "The study was designed to optimize the potential for positively valued experiences by providing 8 hours of preparation, administering psilocybin in a pleasant, supportive setting, and instructing volunteers to focus explicitly on their subjective or inner experience." They used soothing music, too. But they also tried various dosages of psilocybin on their subjects, and it turns out that nearly all of the episodes of anxiety happened at the highest dose. Crank it down one notch and you're still likely to get most of the benefits but with significantly less chance of a bad experience.

http://www.alternet.org/story/151331/how_magic_mushrooms_can_improve_your_life_in_the_long-term?akid=7132.200602._lCmu2&rd=1&t=8

[Richard D]

1. So there you have it

So there you have it: a genuine mystical experience with long-lasting positive effects, no reported negative effects, no known medical side effects in healthy people, and with virtually no chance of a bad experience. Does that sound like something you'd like to try? Well, you can't: no matter how safe and beneficial it might be, psilocybin is a Schedule 1 controlled substance and you can't have any. You may thank the War on Drugs whenever you like.

[zeemike]

3. In certain parts of the country in the right cow pasture

You can get them free and fresh twice a year.

[patrice]

7. But "we" can damn well give you liver-destroying lithium for your troubles! nt

[Howler]

2. SSShhhhrrrroooommms n/t

Shrooming!Why are scientists always the last to know????LOL!

[abq e streeter]

4. Interesting timing (for me personally) for you to post this

I have recently been thinking about doing this for the 1st time in 40 years, after going through (including currently) a rough patch in my life, and thinking about how I blasted myself out of a severe depression many years ago due to the calmness and perspective gained from my experience with psilocybin. Just not sure what my body could handle physiologically at my age ( I get reactions these days to things ranging from anesthetics/painkillers to caffeine). But it certainly is tempting, and this article certainly backs up my own experience.

[here_is_to_hope]

5. Good read and I would add...

that very small amounts of most types of magic mushrooms are the best pain relief for me and a few others.
Ingest enough to get the 'tinges' (you kids know what I am talking about) and presto, my back spasm are gone for about three hours. No tripping, a little giggle now and then but I am able to function easily enough. Way better than the prescribed vicodin and oxycontin I have.
Can't eat them on a daily basis for pain but they do work wonders.

As to the setting people eat them to trip, yeah, no cars, no industrial noises, no messes in the kitchen, no mirrors and do not look at your hands.
I have also noticed over the years that females tend to have more bad trip issues than males. Not scientific, just what I have seen. LSD seems to have the same effect.

For those of you who want mushrooms but cant find them, they sell bricks online that are preloaded with spores and produce an ounce or two before they are depleted.
So I heard anyway.

[shireen]

6. what's a safe dosage for mild effects?

does it depend on the type of mushroom?

[here_is_to_hope]

8. Its very hard to tell

the potency of what you may buy from friends or on the street.
When I come across some freshies, I eat a 1/2 inch by 1/4 inch piece of stem and wait 30 minutes. If I feel no tinges, I double it until I do. Then and only then would I ingest enough to get 'high'.
But even then, mushrooms fruiting from the same spores can have varying potency.
I have eaten too many before, in a bowl of oatmeal. It was about 6 caps and three stems and it was WAY TOO MUCH.
Didn't see God or have any lasting effects but it definately sucked.
And I was on the beach at Sand Dollar in Big Sur, about the nicest place you would want to od on shrooms.

[bengalherder]

9. Yeah, the ones you grow are different species

than the ones you pluck from your Seattle yard.

Check out Erowid or The Nook for more info.

Even within those guidelines, set and setting can do interesting things. One of my most amazing experience was on a dose that should not have, by rights, been as active. However, I was with friends with a lot of positive 'energy' happening around me.

I was a pretty depressed teenager. Even then, the world was full of hypocritical bastards and evil motherfuckers.

My first trip dovetailed with the first summer I was getting high.

After sensing the profundity of the universe, I healed enough to be functional and to desire to go on to see where the road leads in this crazy world. Anecdotal, I know, but true.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. Dr Timothy Leary said that dosage is of equal importance to

set and setting in the consioius use of psychedelics. This study seems to echo that concept, or validate it yet again.

[Richard D]

11. There's a book just out . . .

"The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide" by James Fadiman, PhD (Undergrad at Harvard, graduate work at Stanford, currently teaches at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology)

Highly recommended.

[cleanhippie]

12. Looks very interesting. I just ordered it from Amazon.

Thanks for the tip.

[astral]

13. You know who, of all people, wrote about getting high

was Dr. Andrew Weil. "The Marriage of the Sun and Moon."

Wowza.

I think I had psylocybins once in my teens. It was interesting. Felt like my head was about five feet wide, and I couldn't get enough of looking up at the stars. I don't know if I'd try them again, though. Something about getting older and not wanting to open those psychic doors and windows so much.

It can be a good thing in the right setting as can other mind-altering substances. I'd rather try something like hash or cocaine or something .... ; )