Two new studies estimate psychedelic use in the U.S. and both find magic mushrooms gaining in popularity, including some folks who just want to get a little bit high, aka microdosing.
I would like to take an alternate view of others, but let me start by saying I’ve done shrooms and I enjoy them and I think they should be legal.
However, the ads selling things like mushroom gummies I have seen on social media are both deceptive about what they can do and are not in any way clear what they mean by ‘microdosing.’ And that’s why my brother went from microdosing to taking massive amounts in the course of a month, claiming it was good for his psychology, and writing that he told his wife to watch him the first time, but she fell asleep and he was fine and now he doesn’t need anyone.
My brother is in his 50s and has no experience with such things. He doesn’t even like weed.
So I do not think this is necessarily a good thing. It could be a good thing if this sort of thing was done under the supervision of a medical professional, but they are selling them via Facebook ads.
Worse, they are also selling ketamine via Facebook ads and also touting its psychological benefits. Again, getting mentally ill people ketamine could be a good thing if done under medical supervision. That’s not happening either.
If you want to do shrooms or even ketamine recreationally, I think that should be your right. But this is like selling people random amounts of lithium and telling them about all the great stuff lithium can do for you.
Yeah, I made a post up thread about microdosing, and how what we know from animal studies is that it’s a really small amount.
Additionally mushroom gummies being sold online are likely not psilocybin. There’s several other species of mushroom that are psychoactive and have other pharmaceuticals in them. Amanita is one, chaga is another. Both of these are common in mushroom gummies and chocolates that I’ve seen being sold in head shops.
They’re not psilocybin mushrooms. Shipping psilocybin across state lines is absolutely illegal.
If you want to pick my brain about any of this squid feel free to shoot me a direct message. I’m a mushroom nerd and drug nerd. And have some college credits in pharmacology.
I’m also a frog. The frog that enjoys reading your posts.
I appreciate the offer, but not only am I his little brother, I’m his little brother by 11 years (I was planned, really). He doesn’t listen to any advice I give him on anything because as far as he’s concerned, I’m still the 5-year-old he left when he went to college. He has a lot of… shall we say interesting ideas about how the universe works lately. It’s not just the gummies, but they haven’t helped.
And I’m not exactly shocked that they aren’t psilocybin. I knew there was some sort of catch here or they wouldn’t be allowed to sell them, but I thought it was one of those legal delta 8 THC vs. illegal natural cannabis things like they have here in Indiana. Some sort of “we made it in a lab, therefore it isn’t the illegal thing” loophole. This makes more sense though.
However, if you can explain to me why everyone I know goes out in the woods and finds baskets full of morels in the spring and not only have I never had the chance to eat one, I’ve never even seen one growing, feel free. They can’t.
Morels have a symbiotic relationship with the plant that they grow with. Most often elm trees.
The colony can live a long time. Depending on the species of morels 100 years, you know like as long as a tree will live. During this time they store nutrients in what is commonly called a truffle, mycologists call that a sclerotia. It’s essentially a knot of mycelium packed full of nutrients, that they will fruit out of once they are separated from their food source, i.e. the tree.
Areas that have been hit by Dutch elm disease end up seeing a lot of morels fruiting, because a lot of trees are dying. Additionally morels like to fruit when the ground temperature is around 50 to 60°. Usually this will be on a south facing hill early in the spring if you are in the northern equator. As well as areas not getting so much direct sunlight later on in the spring.
Aside from that, like all mushrooms they enjoy fruiting after a rainfall. So the best time to look for them is when the ground temperature is 50 to 60°, it’s just rained, and the best place to look for them is in areas with lots of elm trees. Especially elms that are dying from Dutch elm.
That is really interesting! Thank you for all the information! This is a lot more advice than they’ve ever given. I wonder if it’s sort of instinctive on their part since they’ve been doing it since they were kids?
I was thinking about this more just now. I know you use weed for medical reasons. Do you ever get hypnagogic images off it when you close your eyes?
I believe this is the cerebral cortex teaching itself how to see things. I get it a lot when I fall into a porn hole or spend a lot of time staring at mushrooms. I think it’s dopamine reinforcement and neuroplasticity, essentially.
Anyway, you can teach yourself to spot them, is what I’m saying. Smoke a bowl, watch some videos online of people hunting them. Preferably a lot of in nature shots so your brain is learning to see them in the right context. When you start to lose interest, pause a good shot and allow yourself to relax and fall into your breathing. If you do this enough, I bet you’ll start to see morels when you close your eyes before bed.
And when you get out to look for them, they’ll be much easier to spot if you allow yourself to again relax and fall into your breathing and sort of trust your muscle memory.
The weed is optional for anyone else reading. But it does have action on dopamine and can give some people mild closed eye visuals, which helps to verify the experiment.
That does make sense, although I use cannabis medicinally and at this point, it mostly just works as a pain modifier. I basically don’t feel high anymore unless I use a ton of the stuff.
What I really need to do is convince someone to take me with them next year.
We have ‘muscle memory’ in our visual cortex as well. So, we can train ourselves to spot stuff that is normally pretty difficult to spot with practice.
The morels being brown, and fruiting in leaves from last fall, it makes them pretty difficult to see.
Aside from that, they probably have a good idea of what spots to hit because they’ve been hitting those spots for years. As well as a understanding of good conditions to look for them, without having the knowledge of those conditions that I just gave.
And… Mushroom foragers are usually pretty sketchy about giving up their good spots.
I would like to take an alternate view of others, but let me start by saying I’ve done shrooms and I enjoy them and I think they should be legal.
However, the ads selling things like mushroom gummies I have seen on social media are both deceptive about what they can do and are not in any way clear what they mean by ‘microdosing.’ And that’s why my brother went from microdosing to taking massive amounts in the course of a month, claiming it was good for his psychology, and writing that he told his wife to watch him the first time, but she fell asleep and he was fine and now he doesn’t need anyone.
My brother is in his 50s and has no experience with such things. He doesn’t even like weed.
So I do not think this is necessarily a good thing. It could be a good thing if this sort of thing was done under the supervision of a medical professional, but they are selling them via Facebook ads.
Worse, they are also selling ketamine via Facebook ads and also touting its psychological benefits. Again, getting mentally ill people ketamine could be a good thing if done under medical supervision. That’s not happening either.
If you want to do shrooms or even ketamine recreationally, I think that should be your right. But this is like selling people random amounts of lithium and telling them about all the great stuff lithium can do for you.
Yeah, I made a post up thread about microdosing, and how what we know from animal studies is that it’s a really small amount.
Additionally mushroom gummies being sold online are likely not psilocybin. There’s several other species of mushroom that are psychoactive and have other pharmaceuticals in them. Amanita is one, chaga is another. Both of these are common in mushroom gummies and chocolates that I’ve seen being sold in head shops.
They’re not psilocybin mushrooms. Shipping psilocybin across state lines is absolutely illegal.
If you want to pick my brain about any of this squid feel free to shoot me a direct message. I’m a mushroom nerd and drug nerd. And have some college credits in pharmacology.
I’m also a frog. The frog that enjoys reading your posts.
I appreciate the offer, but not only am I his little brother, I’m his little brother by 11 years (I was planned, really). He doesn’t listen to any advice I give him on anything because as far as he’s concerned, I’m still the 5-year-old he left when he went to college. He has a lot of… shall we say interesting ideas about how the universe works lately. It’s not just the gummies, but they haven’t helped.
And I’m not exactly shocked that they aren’t psilocybin. I knew there was some sort of catch here or they wouldn’t be allowed to sell them, but I thought it was one of those legal delta 8 THC vs. illegal natural cannabis things like they have here in Indiana. Some sort of “we made it in a lab, therefore it isn’t the illegal thing” loophole. This makes more sense though.
However, if you can explain to me why everyone I know goes out in the woods and finds baskets full of morels in the spring and not only have I never had the chance to eat one, I’ve never even seen one growing, feel free. They can’t.
Morels have a symbiotic relationship with the plant that they grow with. Most often elm trees.
The colony can live a long time. Depending on the species of morels 100 years, you know like as long as a tree will live. During this time they store nutrients in what is commonly called a truffle, mycologists call that a sclerotia. It’s essentially a knot of mycelium packed full of nutrients, that they will fruit out of once they are separated from their food source, i.e. the tree.
Areas that have been hit by Dutch elm disease end up seeing a lot of morels fruiting, because a lot of trees are dying. Additionally morels like to fruit when the ground temperature is around 50 to 60°. Usually this will be on a south facing hill early in the spring if you are in the northern equator. As well as areas not getting so much direct sunlight later on in the spring.
Aside from that, like all mushrooms they enjoy fruiting after a rainfall. So the best time to look for them is when the ground temperature is 50 to 60°, it’s just rained, and the best place to look for them is in areas with lots of elm trees. Especially elms that are dying from Dutch elm.
That is really interesting! Thank you for all the information! This is a lot more advice than they’ve ever given. I wonder if it’s sort of instinctive on their part since they’ve been doing it since they were kids?
I was thinking about this more just now. I know you use weed for medical reasons. Do you ever get hypnagogic images off it when you close your eyes?
I believe this is the cerebral cortex teaching itself how to see things. I get it a lot when I fall into a porn hole or spend a lot of time staring at mushrooms. I think it’s dopamine reinforcement and neuroplasticity, essentially.
Anyway, you can teach yourself to spot them, is what I’m saying. Smoke a bowl, watch some videos online of people hunting them. Preferably a lot of in nature shots so your brain is learning to see them in the right context. When you start to lose interest, pause a good shot and allow yourself to relax and fall into your breathing. If you do this enough, I bet you’ll start to see morels when you close your eyes before bed.
And when you get out to look for them, they’ll be much easier to spot if you allow yourself to again relax and fall into your breathing and sort of trust your muscle memory.
The weed is optional for anyone else reading. But it does have action on dopamine and can give some people mild closed eye visuals, which helps to verify the experiment.
That does make sense, although I use cannabis medicinally and at this point, it mostly just works as a pain modifier. I basically don’t feel high anymore unless I use a ton of the stuff.
What I really need to do is convince someone to take me with them next year.
You can skip the cannabis.
But yeah, having someone take you is the best way.
Likely.
We have ‘muscle memory’ in our visual cortex as well. So, we can train ourselves to spot stuff that is normally pretty difficult to spot with practice.
The morels being brown, and fruiting in leaves from last fall, it makes them pretty difficult to see.
Aside from that, they probably have a good idea of what spots to hit because they’ve been hitting those spots for years. As well as a understanding of good conditions to look for them, without having the knowledge of those conditions that I just gave.
And… Mushroom foragers are usually pretty sketchy about giving up their good spots.