I wrote most of this a couple of weeks ago and just finished it up…

Recently I have done some experimentation with Psilocybin Mushrooms that I have found in the wild. I will attempt to describe some of my experiences.

A lot of people say take things like take 2 grams if you want a light experience. Or take 5 grams if you want a “heroic dose”, but I think there are problems with that advice.

First off there are many different kinds of Psilocybin Mushrooms and they have varying amounts of psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin. I saw a cool chart in Paul Stamets book Psilocybin Mushrooms Of The World that showed the differences between some of the species.

I couldn’t find that image online, but I found this that says the psilocybin content can range from .16% to 1.73%.

According to Alan Rockefeller psilocybe cubensis is the most commonly sold magic mushroom, but it’s psilocybin content is less than half of some other species that grow around here and in the North West.

Anyways…

A lower dose experiment

Today I did some hiking around San Francisco mostly near San Bruno mountain. Prior to today I had a night where I didn’t sleep very well.

I got up a little early around 8-ish as I couldn’t sleep well.

I ate three medium-small mushrooms and here are some things I noticed:

• My mind is calm
• No negative thoughts
• No anxiety
• No ruminating
• More in the moment
• Body feels fine
• Slight enhancement of visuals

I also ate about 1/3 of a 100% cacao chocolate bar. Cacao contains theobromine and a small amount of caffeine. Both are stimulants. Since I did not sleep much more than 4 hours the night before I did this.

As usual before I went hiking a did some yoga. Aside from the cacao I didn’t eat any meals. 1 or 2 days a week I will skip a meal or 2 (intermittent fasting/time restricted feeding).

Anyways I wasn’t so sure how much I would feel from those mushrooms. The last time that I ate them I had a rather intense experience which I will tell you about later, but this time I hardly noticed them.

Shortly after I arrived at the San Bruno mountain area I decided to eat the mushrooms and a little more cacao. I continued walking and also decided I should do some yoga and meditate as my body was feeling painful as I didn’t sleep much.

I found a little park area with some concrete picnic tables and did a little yoga and meditation. It’s amazing how those things can make you feel better.

I did some hiking around that area, but I never really felt the psilocybin come on like you sometimes do. I had more mushrooms, but decided I would save them for another time.

At some point I noticed which seemed like the first effects was a slight enhancement of colors. But that could have even been in my head as I have taken them before, but…

I think I become more in the moment just looking around exploring and eating blackberries!

I must have ate 2 cups of blackberries!

I saw like 3 banana slugs and then one leopard print slug. The fog started to come in and drip down drops of rain. It was quite nice.

Eventually I decided to go back and as I was on the bus back I realized just how calm I was. I wasn’t anxious to get anywhere or annoyed with the people or ruminating about something stupid like I sometimes do.

After this experience I can agree on the scientific fact that psilocybin mushrooms work in a similar way as meditation.

Meditation and Magic Mushrooms Do the Same Thing to Your Brain

I just felt in the moment and that was my experience with a lower dose of psilocybin mushrooms. I wasn’t out there and I didn’t have any side effects except for a moment of light nausea that went away when I ate some blackberries.

A higher dose experiment

After reading about some of the experiments with high doses at John Hopkins university and from some other sources I decided I would eat them at home and stay inside which would be different as I usually go outside in nature for this sort of thing.

So I made a psilocybin soup! I added about 6-7 small dried mushrooms and 1 big dried mushroom.

How I made it

• ginger
• nutritional yeast
• water
• psilocybin mushrooms
• a little seaweed
• a little kale
• salt

The soup was quite good. After I ingested it I lied down to meditate. It wasn’t long before I started to feel the effects. It may have been 30-40 minutes or so.

This was an intense experience that lasted a good 6 hours with the first 3 being the most intense.

They say it can be hard to separate your senses. That means that seeing and hearing can become one. And I can’t actually remember or tell in one case as there was this sort of communicating sounds and or visions about insects.

I couldn’t quite determine what they were. It was like I was hearing some sort of animal or living things communication with me. It was sort of screeching like but not loud.

It was kind of like insects or something. And it was really weird as a few days later I read that one of the reasons why some scientists think that these kinds of mushrooms make psilocybin is to keep insects from eating them.

Anyways…

Here are some things I experienced…

• Hallucinations
• Fear of death I felt like I was going to die
• Anxiety
• Panic
• Terror
• Crying (first time in many years)
• Euphoria

The kind of hallucinations I have experienced with mushrooms are distortions of things. I never really saw something that wasn’t there, however some things become more vivid, move, distort, you may see doublish momentarily and one time before this experience I saw part of a dirt road sort of animate and become fractal like in a way and move like water.

I mean it was the color of the dirt still, but it was not still. It became fractal like and moved like water for just a moment.

Death

I have experienced the sensation that I was dying several times on higher doses. This fear that I ate the wrong mushrooms and it was going to kill me. That has happened several times at a higher dose.

Panic, paranoia, terror…

All these things sound bad at a high dose so why do it?

It probably does sound that way, but there is also something going on here that is hard to explain. At a high dose you are really going to go somewhere mystical.

And despite being terrifying at times they have also been very cathartic. Since I first started writing this piece I have had another very intense higher dose experience.

I told the story with my webcam although I haven’t published it yet. More coming on that soon.

Oh and if you found this article in search and you are wondering how much should you take then I would say to start small. There are benefits to both small and high doses. And unless you are taking psilocybe cubensis then I wouldn’t go by weight and you have to also consider your body size too.

It’s pretty unpredictable until you try so that’s why I would start small.