What are Psilocybin Mushrooms?
Psilocybin is the naturally occuring chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms, also referred to as "Magic Mushrooms" or "Mush". This chemical metabolizes after ingestion into psilocin, the active chemical in these mushrooms. There are more than
180 species of mushrooms which contain the psychedelics psilocybin or psilocin.
They have a long history of use in Mexico and are
currently one of the most popular and commonly available natural psychedelics.
What do Psilocybin Mushrooms look like?
Psilocybin mushrooms look like any other wild mushrooms found in nature. They are usually small and tan colored and bruise blue when touched. They are known for their extremely unpleasant taste and smell. They are ingested orally and can be eaten raw, dried, cooked or brewed.
What do Psilocybin Mushrooms do to you?
Psilocybin Mushrooms induce a trip much like that of LSD or Salvia. After ingestion, you will experience visualizations, altered perception of stimulus and hallucinations. Like most psychedelics, the strength of a magic mushroom trip can be overwhelming and cause panic in users. A trip feeds off the user's imagination and when done in a negative state of mind can have dramatic consequences.
EFFECTS INCLUDE: emptiness in stomach, numbness in limbs, vertigo, increase in perception, sensitivity to touch, loss of appetite, uncontrollable smiling, redness and itching of skin, euphoria, , feeling of extreme lightness, increased heart rate, dilated pupils, vomiting, teary eyed, yawning, cramps, nausea and feelings of drunkenness.
SYMPTOMS THAT MAKE YOU THINK: involuntary muscle spasms, feeling of having peed your pants, shifts in vision, constant peeing, foul smelling urine (like burnt rubber), auditory hallucinations, constant high pitch noises, visualizations, weakness in knees, confusion, feelings of a kinetic force in body, philosophical rambling, manic energy, indecisive judgement, strange feeling in teeth and nose, open and closed eye visuals and overall lethargy or tiredness.
Psilocybin mushrooms last between 3 - 8 hours, depending on dosage, but these effects appear to last longer because of the user's altered perception of time.
EFFECTS INCLUDE: emptiness in stomach, numbness in limbs, vertigo, increase in perception, sensitivity to touch, loss of appetite, uncontrollable smiling, redness and itching of skin, euphoria, , feeling of extreme lightness, increased heart rate, dilated pupils, vomiting, teary eyed, yawning, cramps, nausea and feelings of drunkenness.
SYMPTOMS THAT MAKE YOU THINK: involuntary muscle spasms, feeling of having peed your pants, shifts in vision, constant peeing, foul smelling urine (like burnt rubber), auditory hallucinations, constant high pitch noises, visualizations, weakness in knees, confusion, feelings of a kinetic force in body, philosophical rambling, manic energy, indecisive judgement, strange feeling in teeth and nose, open and closed eye visuals and overall lethargy or tiredness.
Psilocybin mushrooms last between 3 - 8 hours, depending on dosage, but these effects appear to last longer because of the user's altered perception of time.
What are the risks?
Although psilocybin mushrooms cause users to build a rapid tolerance, preventing physical addiction, they carry many risks. Mushrooms can be poisonous and potentially fatal. Users may experience persistent hallucinations, panic attacks, paranoid delusions, depression or perceptual disturbances following a trip.
Psilocybin Mushrooms and the Law
In Canada, Psilocybin and Psilocin are classified as Schedule III drugs, carrying a maximum penalty of 3 years imprisonement for possession and 10 years imprisonment for trafficking.
User's story
Death, Responsibility and the Void by Zach T.
The intensity quickly and smoothly becomes more and more. Suddenly, I begin to feel unsafe, as if I had taken too many drugs. In truth, I probably had taken too much. The music, which had just been embracing my mind in its gentle folds of cotton, became overwhelming, disjointed, and frightening. So I quickly turn off the music and am left with a ringing silence louder than a freight train's passing. My mind is working frantically fast, so fast that entire trains of thought occur from start to end all at once, the first thought leading to each other thought in the sequence before I can actually think about it. But yet at the same time, none of it escapes me. My mind has becomes a steel trap, one which has unfortunately become stranded out by itself in the middle of a dark forest full of leafless, stretching and skeletal trees.
Panic begins to creep in, slowly at first, but with increasing insistence. I enter a cold sweat, the buzzing in my body becoming so strong that I feel barely able to exist. I suddenly feel threatened, as if I am about to overdose. My thoughts begin to spin into a familiar cycle, recognizable by my second +4 experience in life, with 2C-E, a cycle of inescapable logic which all leads to the single horrifying conclusion that could possibly remain: death/nonexistence.
I begin to approach the Void, and as I realize with increasing terror, once it has grabbed me, its massive gravitational pull does not allow escape. Allow me to try to describe this mental loop for the esteemed reader. It was a process of continual awakening, of constantly unwrapping a layer from my thoughts which revealed a deeper layer beneath. Once that first panic hit, my thoughts were directed towards fear, so any unprompted thought involved some sort of fear about dying or becoming insane. Then as soon as I thought it, I would pull back my thoughts, because that thought immediately branched out into all of its consecutive steps, until it reached the conclusion that I was dying or ceasing to exist. This happened immediately, faster than the speed of thought. It also involved incredible synchronicity across time and space, with my own life, past lives, and ancient history. Feeling Death by Brianna B.First off I have extreme anxiety and I am bipolar. About a week ago I lost my anxiety medicine, but haven’t been in any particularly anxious situations and so I was coping alright. I also want to say that in the past, I loved liberty caps. I always had fun on them before and was really looking forward to this trip as much as the past ones. I feel though that we did not take some proper preparations and that perhaps I should’ve respected my drug a bit more. Here’s the story.
Feeling Death by Brianna B.
My good friends had a quarter of liberty caps on hold for them, but realized that they didn’t have the money for them, and so offered them to us. We had done shrooms three times before, and would be taking a smaller dose this time than usual as our friends had only set aside a quarter and the three of us would have to split it up. We each took about 2.3 grams.
After eating the shrooms we sat in the living room with the TV on, slowly feeling the effects build up. Within 45 minutes from eating them the TV became far too overwhelming and we all headed upstairs to K’s room. I crawled in his bed and asked my fiancé to lay down with me. But I felt all wrong. I was having trouble breathing, I felt light headed and nauseous, and extremely cold. As I tripped harder and harder the tapestry that K had attached to his ceiling to dim the lights started taking on the frightening shape of alien faces. As I am extremely afraid of Aliens this was the worst possible thing that could happen. Suddenly everything was made up of alien faces. They were swirling around me all staring at me with their big eyes.
I continued to get colder until I was shaking and felt like I was definitely going to be sick. I kept thinking that I had stopped breathing and would try and catch my breath, but I was just having so much trouble. I got up and dashed across the room to the bathroom. I sat on the bathroom floor and shook uncontrollably. I somehow confused myself into thinking that I had eaten the wrong shrooms and had therefore poisoned myself and I was dying.
He came to the bathroom and helped me up and hugged me. I nearly passed out in his arms twice before I was able to say “let’s go to the bedroom.” The second we were in the bedroom I took off my clothes and got under the covers. I was getting colder and colder. And I couldn’t stop shaking and wiggling. My fiancé held me for what seemed like an eternity. He said that every few seconds I would say “Baby I’m not ok, I can’t breath, I’m dying, call the hospital.” Eventually I stopped adding the “Call the hospital” and just decided that I was going to die, and if I was going to die, in my own bed being held by the man I loved was exactly where I wanted to be. So I resigned myself to never coming out of the trip and just layed down to die.
What seemed like decades later, but was merely just a few hours, I felt better. It was like all of a sudden the shrooms lifted and I was all smiles. I had lived! I couldn’t believe it. I felt on top of the world for a few hours and then went to bed. The next day I woke up feeling kind of off. And that night I got cold and I freaked out. I thought I was dying again instantly. I insisted we go to bed again and he held me while I shook for the second night in a row, only this time there were no drugs involved. I even made him take my temperature. My anxiety had taken over and I had no more anxiety medicine.
For the first time in my life I am afraid of death. I feel like I know what it’s like to die. 3 days later I am still a nervous wreck and I can’t help but think about death. I learned that shrooms may not be for me.
The intensity quickly and smoothly becomes more and more. Suddenly, I begin to feel unsafe, as if I had taken too many drugs. In truth, I probably had taken too much. The music, which had just been embracing my mind in its gentle folds of cotton, became overwhelming, disjointed, and frightening. So I quickly turn off the music and am left with a ringing silence louder than a freight train's passing. My mind is working frantically fast, so fast that entire trains of thought occur from start to end all at once, the first thought leading to each other thought in the sequence before I can actually think about it. But yet at the same time, none of it escapes me. My mind has becomes a steel trap, one which has unfortunately become stranded out by itself in the middle of a dark forest full of leafless, stretching and skeletal trees.
Panic begins to creep in, slowly at first, but with increasing insistence. I enter a cold sweat, the buzzing in my body becoming so strong that I feel barely able to exist. I suddenly feel threatened, as if I am about to overdose. My thoughts begin to spin into a familiar cycle, recognizable by my second +4 experience in life, with 2C-E, a cycle of inescapable logic which all leads to the single horrifying conclusion that could possibly remain: death/nonexistence.
I begin to approach the Void, and as I realize with increasing terror, once it has grabbed me, its massive gravitational pull does not allow escape. Allow me to try to describe this mental loop for the esteemed reader. It was a process of continual awakening, of constantly unwrapping a layer from my thoughts which revealed a deeper layer beneath. Once that first panic hit, my thoughts were directed towards fear, so any unprompted thought involved some sort of fear about dying or becoming insane. Then as soon as I thought it, I would pull back my thoughts, because that thought immediately branched out into all of its consecutive steps, until it reached the conclusion that I was dying or ceasing to exist. This happened immediately, faster than the speed of thought. It also involved incredible synchronicity across time and space, with my own life, past lives, and ancient history. Feeling Death by Brianna B.First off I have extreme anxiety and I am bipolar. About a week ago I lost my anxiety medicine, but haven’t been in any particularly anxious situations and so I was coping alright. I also want to say that in the past, I loved liberty caps. I always had fun on them before and was really looking forward to this trip as much as the past ones. I feel though that we did not take some proper preparations and that perhaps I should’ve respected my drug a bit more. Here’s the story.
Feeling Death by Brianna B.
My good friends had a quarter of liberty caps on hold for them, but realized that they didn’t have the money for them, and so offered them to us. We had done shrooms three times before, and would be taking a smaller dose this time than usual as our friends had only set aside a quarter and the three of us would have to split it up. We each took about 2.3 grams.
After eating the shrooms we sat in the living room with the TV on, slowly feeling the effects build up. Within 45 minutes from eating them the TV became far too overwhelming and we all headed upstairs to K’s room. I crawled in his bed and asked my fiancé to lay down with me. But I felt all wrong. I was having trouble breathing, I felt light headed and nauseous, and extremely cold. As I tripped harder and harder the tapestry that K had attached to his ceiling to dim the lights started taking on the frightening shape of alien faces. As I am extremely afraid of Aliens this was the worst possible thing that could happen. Suddenly everything was made up of alien faces. They were swirling around me all staring at me with their big eyes.
I continued to get colder until I was shaking and felt like I was definitely going to be sick. I kept thinking that I had stopped breathing and would try and catch my breath, but I was just having so much trouble. I got up and dashed across the room to the bathroom. I sat on the bathroom floor and shook uncontrollably. I somehow confused myself into thinking that I had eaten the wrong shrooms and had therefore poisoned myself and I was dying.
He came to the bathroom and helped me up and hugged me. I nearly passed out in his arms twice before I was able to say “let’s go to the bedroom.” The second we were in the bedroom I took off my clothes and got under the covers. I was getting colder and colder. And I couldn’t stop shaking and wiggling. My fiancé held me for what seemed like an eternity. He said that every few seconds I would say “Baby I’m not ok, I can’t breath, I’m dying, call the hospital.” Eventually I stopped adding the “Call the hospital” and just decided that I was going to die, and if I was going to die, in my own bed being held by the man I loved was exactly where I wanted to be. So I resigned myself to never coming out of the trip and just layed down to die.
What seemed like decades later, but was merely just a few hours, I felt better. It was like all of a sudden the shrooms lifted and I was all smiles. I had lived! I couldn’t believe it. I felt on top of the world for a few hours and then went to bed. The next day I woke up feeling kind of off. And that night I got cold and I freaked out. I thought I was dying again instantly. I insisted we go to bed again and he held me while I shook for the second night in a row, only this time there were no drugs involved. I even made him take my temperature. My anxiety had taken over and I had no more anxiety medicine.
For the first time in my life I am afraid of death. I feel like I know what it’s like to die. 3 days later I am still a nervous wreck and I can’t help but think about death. I learned that shrooms may not be for me.