Microdosing Mushrooms

I hadn't taken psychedelic mushrooms in a long time for many reasons but mostly because I was afraid of having a bad experience. I wrote a blog post a while back about two experiences I had with large amounts of magic mushrooms. One experience was great and one was horrible so when thinking about taking mushrooms again I always worried about having another bad experience. Earlier this year, though, I decided to try them again but in a more deliberate way. Another reason to take less is that mushrooms can make you vomit or have diarrhea and that didn't seem like a pleasant experience, especially out in the woods. I decided to microdose instead of taking a larger amount and just see what happens.

On a couple of backpacking and camping trips that I went on earlier this year, I brought along some mushrooms. I brought enough to take a large dose but I didn't want to create unnecessary anxiety in a place that I knew I was already going to feel anxious. Sleeping in a tent in the forest provokes a lot of anxiety for me regardless of whether I'm alone or not and whether I'm in a campground or not. When I lay down in the dark my mind goes to work creating a series of fear-inducing imaginings and contemplations. I usually just accept the situation and try to convince myself that I'm ok and that I'm being irrational. 

The total amount of anxiety has gone down over the years with continued backing and camping trips but I still experience fear. Sometimes I just wait until I am completely exhausted or drunk but that isn't always preferred and I don't want to always rely on self-medication to deal with my negative mental states. That being said I decided to try some mushrooms this year to see if it would add to my enjoyment of the great outdoors. 

The first experience was on a fairly strenuous backpacking trip with my two friends. We trekked deep into the damp Washington wilderness where there didn't seem to be anyone anywhere nearby and made camp off the trail. It was lightly rainy most of the time but we didn't bring any dry wood so a great deal of effort was made in creating a suitable basecamp which included putting up a tarp for a dry area to eat and attempting to create fire from the horribly wet environment. 

It was late the first day and I took just a few bits of mushroom and started to roam the forest looking for pieces of wood that might help start and maintain the fire. After about ten minutes I noticed a definite change in both my visual perception and my mood. My vision seemed to widen and the trees around me became more vibrant and alive. I smiled when I realized that the mushrooms were working and the smile led to a deep feeling of joy. I was so happy to be in the forest, with its peaceful silence and earthy smells. 

Prior to the mushrooms, I had a somewhat serious demeanor that was focused on accomplishing goals related to setting up camp and thinking about what was next. After the mushrooms took effect I felt that the moment I was in was that only thing that mattered. Any sense of potential anxiety faded away and throughout the night I felt elevated happiness. Even while I was in my tent anticipating the inevitable anxiety of trying to sleep I felt that the only anxiety I might be feeling was a remnant of my expectation and a memory of past anxiety. There was no authentic anxiety which freed me up to meditate on other things as I fell asleep. 

The next evening I microdosed again and had a less intense version of the same experiences of the previous evening but still experienced an obvious change in mood. It seemed that either I took less or I had become slightly tolerant of the effects but they were definitely there. Less visual disruption but similar mood elevation. It all reminds me of a time when I took a supplement called New Mood from the company Onnit. New Mood is a product that is supposed to increase serotonin production in the brain which has an effect on many things including mood. 

My experience of taking New Mood was intensely powerful and my mood was elevated while I took it. I felt happy in an almost manic way but without any cognitive chaos. The problem was that when I didn't take it I felt a very intense sense of depression. Not taking it for just one day seemed to reduce my mood to something worse than before I started taking it at all. The supplement was very expensive to be taking every day and I knew that I didn't want to rely on it or have to pay for it forever so I had to stop taking it altogether. Taking it periodically would have created a roller coaster of emotional states that I think would be worse than feeling slightly depressed all the time. 

I don't know what the effects of continual microdosing mushrooms would be for me but I don't like the idea of relying on anything so much that I become a slave to it as a solution to issues that might be addressed through more sustainable means. Activities such as exercise, eating well, and generally taking control of my life have done more than any of these drugs or supplements have done for my mental and physical health but I still like the idea of altering my consciousness and experimenting with things that others have gotten value from. The experiences I had with microdosing were positive and I will likely do it again and maybe I will up the dose or try something else in the future as well. 

I do not recommend people microdose mushrooms or take any other drug at all. I don't care what others do with their bodies or consciousness but it seems that people are curious about how substances and activities can affect personal perspectives so I am glad to share my thoughts on this topic. I am glad that more research is being done on the benefits of psilocybin and I think that it is immoral to criminalize drug use of any kind. Knowledge of the effects of substances helps foster safety and efficacy and destigmatizes the unknown. There are reasons to take drugs and they aren't always pragmatic. Sometimes taking a risk in and of itself is valuable and we should all be free to live in a way that generates personal and interpersonal peace. 

 

Here is my previous post about a good and bad mushroom trip:

Re-Post: Shrooms: A Good Trip and a Bad Trip

Undulating Quantum Probabilities

Someone once told me that the world is upside down but our minds correct this and we see the world right-side up. Sky side up. This is not true. The world is right-side up and our eyeballs are curved like a crystal ball that focuses light onto the retina. The resulting image is a projection of the world-oriented upside down because of curvature. The brain does not care that the image is physically disjointed from reality because it can represent the data in almost any orientation. It just so happens that the most adaptive way to represent this data is in a way that doesn't disorient us and lead to injuries; right side up.

What if I told you that the world around you was actually made up of large waves. The floor that seems so flat and straight that you stand on every day is actually undulating and flowing like a steady wave swishing against the rocks. That your mind, from birth, has been correcting for this odd state of nature by filtering out the extraneous oscillations of matter and straightening the world out. Making it useful. Coping with reality for pragmatic purposes the mind manipulates and interprets the universe in a way that "makes sense".

What if I told you that as your mind was forming in the womb you began to see the world as it is; an infinite amalgam, a gelatinous kaleidoscope, a soupy stew of chemistry in motion. Molecules bursting and reforming. Absorption and osmosis. Cell division and quantum entanglement. All there before your eyes. Your skin was not a barrier but instead, it was a fine cheesecloth where molecular bodies eloped.  In your ears, you heard the soft whispers of reality as it vibrated and cajoled.

Then, as time went by and the mind developed you slowly morphed the world around you by integrating and discerning inputs. Separating and combining elements and discovering patterns. Your mind, like the universe, churned and moved, creating its own perception of reality. And after birth, you continued to straighten out the world. Soon you learned a language, making the whole endeavor more complicated, rewarding and troublesome. Some are better than others at interacting with reality. Some attempt to probe its deepest mysteries. Some reach for the stars. Most don't care.

None of this is true, of course. You were never able to perceive the quantum world or cell division. As the brain developed it slowly began to perceive the environment from a more macro perspective. Our sensory organs are limited to certain biological parameters. These dictate the range of sensory data we can imbibe and modulate its representation. The size and shape of an eye, for instance, limits its magnification and focusing of light, its field of view and the number of and type of components, ie rods and cones, and potential nerve sites.

But reality is an undulating molasses of possibilities flowing about in front of your face. Our bodies are made up of the most complex set of biological structures, which are all composed of undulating quantum probabilities. Sometimes, with the help of drugs or other tools, we witness a bit of what the world would look like if we could perceive the quantum world. Reality would bend and sway. It would disassemble and reassemble before you. 

Too bad. 

Media:

https://www.sightsavers.org/protecting-sight/the-eyes/

https://science.howstuffworks.com/magic-mushroom1.htm

Shrooms: A Good Trip and a Bad Trip

This is the story about the first and the last time I ate magic mushrooms.

It was Halloween, some time ago when I tasted my first magic mushroom. A friend of mine had invited me to a party at his friend's house nestled in the forested hills somewhere near North Bend, Oregon. As the sun was coming down the five of us made our way to the back room where we each took hold of a piece of pizza on top of which lay two or so grayish, dried mushrooms. We ate our slices, some in silence and some with childish glee. My nerves were peaked but I was committed to the experience and I ate my slice with all its foul flavors. As it hit my tongue I was compelled not to continue but I forced it down, the pizza barely masking its rotten impression.

It took a little while for the shroom's effects to manifest itself but as it did I felt my stomach churning and eyes widening. I stood up from the couch and ran into the bathroom. I puked a couple of times in the toilet and again tasted the nasty dirt-rotten mushrooms. As I recovered I was taken aback by two consecutive thoughts. The first was that there was now a slight green filter to everything and the man in the mirror was a version of myself that I recognized but in a new and fascinating way. The next thought was that I felt much better and a wave of euphoria and calm washed over me. I smiled at the tinted green version of myself and made my way back to the living room.

The rest of the evening I only remember in bits and pieces of sensory information. I remember the delicious maple syrup smell of the fog machine that would fill the room highlighting the three-dimensional space, the smoke undulating around faux spider webs, pumpkins, and skeletons. I remember laughing with friends and watching the carpet moving under my feet. At one point an old Christmas movie came on and I remember it being very interesting which I'm sure is only due to the significance inducing properties of the shrooms. One of my favorite activities was being outside where we reveled in the splendor of a bonfire celebrating our primal humanity and lighting fireworks. The place, activities and especially the people helped create an experience worth having.

Sometime later, I was with a completely different set of friends, a different place, and ate a different type of mushroom. This time a few work friends and I decided to eat mushrooms and hang out. The only activity that somehow we all agreed upon was watching the movie The Labyrinth. After eating the mushrooms, which were equally disgusting to the first ones, we sat in the living room a started watching the movie. My stomach churned again but I do not remember puking or anything turning green. The entire experience went by in a slow motion hell of David Bowie and Jim Henson muppets flashing in and out of my mind. As I watched the movie my mind would wander back and forth through past memories of watching the movie, predicting the next scene and then remembering past scenes in a time-bending nonsensical rollercoaster I could not escape.

As time went on my mind began attempting to make sense of what was occurring but as my rationality was impaired I couldn't continue a thought long enough to work out what was happening or what to do while watching random clips of an insanely abstract movie. I wasn't in control and as my panic grew worse I decided to simply close my eyes and try to sleep. This did not help much as the visuals did not stop behind my closed eyes. Clips of The Labyrinth continued to play in my head as a consuming inner voice continued to attempt to rationalize the experience. Eventually, I remembered that I had taken shrooms, that I would be alright and that the only way out was to ride the rollercoaster. I let my mind meander and soon the whirring thoughts turned into a bound up mess in a feeling I can only describe as grilling. It felt like my brain had been placed on a bbq grill to slow cook until crispy.

I am glad for the experiences and I learned more about what it is that magic mushrooms can do. I am skeptical of those that have only good things to say about mushrooms and those who blame the user for their bad experiences. I do agree that the way I experienced the shrooms in each situation played a role in the positive and negative outcomes and that mindset, setting and activities are important factors. I also agree that these things should not be done glibly or thought of as party drugs as the results are variable and the chemicals are unregulated. Ingesting organic psychedelics is not for everyone and the outcomes are unpredictable.

Ultimately I did not come to any realizations or epiphanies about my life or the universe. Maybe I was in a "bad place" when I took the shrooms the second time or maybe I took too much or had a bad reaction chemically. Either way, I learned something about how the mind can change when introduced to outside chemicals and how you can really only understand something by doing it.