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I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and mo

I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she described it as though her mind's harddrive had been defragmented. Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the mainstream route her doctor would prescribe - anti depressants. She has been taking a tiny dose every other day and feels immeasurably better. More optimistic about the future. More energy. More focus. Less sad. To say it's frustrating to read these official press releases about the positive impact of mushrooms nearly 20 years after she discovered them for the first time is the understatement of a lifetime. I'm convinced we'll look back at this era as a form of prohibition on drugs that governments threw down as a wide blanket and ultimately society was worse off for.

jack_riminton 6y ago
This is my experience too. I’ve been microdosing about 1.3mg on and off during lockdown. The effects are subtle and hard to describe but I’d say it’s like ‘opening your mind’ or reframing your point of view on things. Definitely different from other drugs which just pump you with serotonin
- anonporridge 6y ago
  It temporarily breaks you out of your established mental framework. It's as if your raw consciousness viewing the world without any of the filters that we all use to tune out the noise. That's why the experience can be overwhelming and chaotic and it's useful to be in a safe place with a trip sitter. I think the magic comes when you discover that something your default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes to your sober mindset.
  - agent008t 6y ago
    That is interesting. So it is a bit like reducing your attention, and expanding awareness? What you described sounds very similar to the effects of mindfulness meditation. The idea in a sense is to increase awareness - that is, sensing the world as is, without the filters or influence of mental objects. The theory is that meditation can then help you free yourself of past negative conditioning that is no longer relevant and to be more present. It would be interesting to see more studies on both, but I understand that many things to do with the mind and subjective experiences are difficult to measure and therefore to study.
    - vmception 6y ago
      there is a suspected overlap that both communities talk about check it out
    - jack_riminton 6y ago
      Yes there are definitely parallels At a cellular level, it temporarily vastly increases the connections between the synapses. A lot of what your brain does is travel along well worn synaptic pathways, like running on autopilot. This is when you feel like you're in a rut, it's because your brain for efficiency reasons is just doing what it always does. The temporary frenzy of increased synaptic connections allows people to break out of those ruts
    - anonporridge 6y ago
      Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than just a party drug, which I had little interest in. In it, he talks about how his early experiences with psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was something real worth pursuing in meditation and mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of the book is about using meditation as a tool for spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural explanations. The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics effectively force any mind into an objectively different state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people take mindfulness practice seriously.
  - Leparamour 6y ago
    >I think the magic comes when you discover that something your default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes to your sober mindset. Regarding microdosing (as described by the OP) this begs the question: Are there perhaps unwanted side effects for running your brain on permanent "debug mode"?
    - anonporridge 6y ago
      Hard to say. This is the first study I've seen that's tried to learn about microdosing. There's not a lot of good data on it, but it wouldn't be hard for me to believe that there are some side effects.
- why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
  I'm honestly surprised that you are able feel any effect from such a dose. Based on what i've heard from my friend's uncle's guardener's grandmother's neighbour, this could very much be just simple placebo effect. You know you are taking mushrooms, which have no effect, but you 'feel' better.
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    No it's very much not a placebo, your mind feels very very different. Colours seem brighter, occasional giggling, a lot more creative thought
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  How do you measure this amount? If mushrooms vary in shape and size...do you have to ground them up and take gelcaps to measure this appropriately?
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    Yes you grind them up and then use a 0.1 mg accuracy scale
internetslave 6y ago
I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.
- simonswords82 6y ago
  I get it - a drug is a drug - and like all drugs I am not saying that psychedelics are a cure all for all people. What I am saying is that it is depressing that we are only just seeing reports from formal sources that psychedelics could be useful for some people.
  - encryptluks2 6y ago
    I mean we could just discuss the issue of freedom and making it illegal for people to grow and consume a mushroom and stop making it about just drugs. Marijuana is the same way. If it isn't for someone then they shouldn't do it and we should make as much information available about something available and provide safe environments, but making it illegal especially when plenty of people have experienced positive effects sometimes profound religious experiences it is just another mechanism of control and taking away freedom and natural rights.
    - ganzuul 6y ago
      Freedom is indeed one narrative. What is being (re-)constructed here is a narrative about plant medicine. The concepts used in each narrative are very different, so if we discussing both at the same time may confound each other.
      - encryptluks2 6y ago
        True, but the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as stated in the United States Declaration of Independence has it covered pretty well. Growing your own mushrooms or marijuana does not restrict on other individual rights if they do so willingly, and therefore getting caught up in treating it like a drug that needs to be studied more before they consider making it more accessible seems a bit absurd IMO. They're not being made in labs and grow naturally in many parts of the US.
MiddleEndian 6y ago
It will be looked back upon the same as alcohol prohibition.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Meaning the prohibition was misguided but the drug itself is dangerous?
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    The drug has dangers, but they seem small compared to those of alcohol, even if largely orthogonal. It got banned because it wasn't understood in the best case, to curb the counterculture movement from the 60s in the worst, but it's always been hard to justify it with medical reasons; it's been just tagged along with cocaine or heroin and made bad by association.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      But if there hasn’t been significant medical research, how do we know there are no long-term dangers?
      - pope_meat 6y ago
        Why, the next best thing after significant medical research, anecdotal research! So far so good.
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        So far in this topic, it’s been research of the “my friend said” kind. Which is even less reliable than direct anecdotal research.
        pope_meat 6y ago
        My friend doesn't like to admit to things that might be considered a crime, it's just how it goes in a police state.
renewiltord 6y ago
I used to think this but I think society has figured out something better. It has figured out that many people can use drugs effectively and many people are worthless on drugs. So what it does is that it allows you to use as many drugs as possible when you're something like a high-income professional and sort of criminalizes drug use among working class people. Your "test" for being a safe drug user is to have a lot to lose. Drug use is rampant in SF for instance. And I know lots of drug users: cocaine, MDMA, psychedelics. I used to think "why doesn't society just make you post a bond that lets you act in a slightly more unrestrained manner" and now I've realized society does! You just have to constantly be in a state of having too much to lose. Personally, I use shrooms frequently (I have some in my fridge right now) and LSD less frequently and MDMA rarely. All of these have been amazing eye opening experiences and I am a much better person for them. Thank God. All a coastal California perspective of course.
- rmcpherson 6y ago
  This is one of the travesties of drug enforcement and has compounded inequality in America. The imprisonment of the poor for nonviolent drug offenses continues today. That a wealthy drug user would laud this as a good outcome of drug policy is honestly flabbergasting, but perhaps shouldn’t be.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    It's really quite awful, isn't it? Completely inequitable and very unfair. But if I had to choose between equal misery and unequal prosperity, I think I choose the latter each time. I'd like for us to make psychedelics accessible to all, but since lots of people don't want that, I think I'll settle for keeping psychedelics accessible to me.
simion314 6y ago
I have zero experience with drugs, so I am wondering if there is a sugar/cigarette industry that put a lot of money into promoting it's products, then what will be different when drugs get legalized? Won't we repeat the history where companies make billions from this products, put them into ads to spread the use and addict people, suppress research into bad side effects etc,. Personally I think there are some good applications for mushrooms or marijuana but my instinct is that the greedy people would do what they do best, sucker people and make big money.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Of course. And when multi billion dollar marketing budgets are put to work for weed and psychedelics, you can expect the same situation to occur as with tobacco or alcohol.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Sure, for weed maybe. But psychedelics are very different. They're really, genuinely not addictive -- probably because they're not "fun." In fact, they're exhausting. You may feel a lot better after, the experience may be fascinating, but you're in absolutely no hurry to do it again. The whole thing lasts a few hours, but literally feels like months, with numerous epochs along the way. It's not like the kind of hollow calories of a bag of Cheetos, it's more like a long, difficult workout. That's hard to productize in that way.
  - bigfudge 6y ago
    >probably because they're not "fun." You've been doing it wrong ;-) I'm not sure I've ever laughed so much or felt so connected to people. Just thinking about it is making me nostalgic.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    I don't think that it is a "fun" factor that keeps people addicted. It's the fear of withdrawals.
    - 5y ago
SpikeMan 6y ago
Reminds me of the documentary about Addreal and it's prevalence in tech and other high-functioning people. It quickly mentioned (anonymously) a SV tech person that switched to microdosing mushrooms rather than Addreal, and how that made everything better for her (but the documentary cut short on following up her case).
- giantg2 6y ago
  I thought you were going a different direction with that. I don't know if it was the same documentary, but the one I saw was focused on the medical and moral effects and questions around the use of Adderall in the tech population, college students, and children. The main gist I got from it was that people were using it without knowing the possible side effects, like liver issues or mood issues. And that many of the people in tech didn't actually need it but were using it to enhance performance, and found a doctor willing to write to script.
pims 6y ago
Would your friend have advice or resources on how to give microdosing a try, especially for people who've never done psychedelics?
- simonswords82 6y ago
  Your best bet is to find a local friend or acquaintance who does have experience who can talk to you in detail about it and help source etc. Reddit is a good source of anecdotal information: https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/7fv5oj/beginners_guide_to_microdosing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/7fv5oj/beginner... https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/ This is also good: https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-explainer.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-explain...
  - pims 6y ago
    Thank you.
- mkeespiet 6y ago
  I have quit some experience, would happy to help you out
TurkishPoptart 6y ago
How much mushroom matter is considered a microdose? Or, how is it best measured?
- tomComb 6y ago
  One way to approach is that a microdose for you is any dose that has no notable psychoactive effect. Practically, microdosing is often in the 20 - 100 mg range, and the lower threshold of a 'normal' psychoactive dose would be 600 - 800 mg (depending on the individual, eg. their weight, of course).
surround 5y ago
She might have been experiencing the effects of placebo. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26324219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26324219

jack_riminton 6y ago

This is my experience too. I’ve been microdosing about 1.3mg on and off during lockdown. The effects are subtle and hard to describe but I’d say it’s like ‘opening your mind’ or reframing your point of view on things. Definitely different from other drugs which just pump you with serotonin

anonporridge 6y ago
It temporarily breaks you out of your established mental framework. It's as if your raw consciousness viewing the world without any of the filters that we all use to tune out the noise. That's why the experience can be overwhelming and chaotic and it's useful to be in a safe place with a trip sitter. I think the magic comes when you discover that something your default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes to your sober mindset.
- agent008t 6y ago
  That is interesting. So it is a bit like reducing your attention, and expanding awareness? What you described sounds very similar to the effects of mindfulness meditation. The idea in a sense is to increase awareness - that is, sensing the world as is, without the filters or influence of mental objects. The theory is that meditation can then help you free yourself of past negative conditioning that is no longer relevant and to be more present. It would be interesting to see more studies on both, but I understand that many things to do with the mind and subjective experiences are difficult to measure and therefore to study.
  - vmception 6y ago
    there is a suspected overlap that both communities talk about check it out
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    Yes there are definitely parallels At a cellular level, it temporarily vastly increases the connections between the synapses. A lot of what your brain does is travel along well worn synaptic pathways, like running on autopilot. This is when you feel like you're in a rut, it's because your brain for efficiency reasons is just doing what it always does. The temporary frenzy of increased synaptic connections allows people to break out of those ruts
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than just a party drug, which I had little interest in. In it, he talks about how his early experiences with psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was something real worth pursuing in meditation and mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of the book is about using meditation as a tool for spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural explanations. The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics effectively force any mind into an objectively different state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people take mindfulness practice seriously.
- Leparamour 6y ago
  >I think the magic comes when you discover that something your default mindset was filtering out as noise is actually signal. With that insight, you can more easily make changes to your sober mindset. Regarding microdosing (as described by the OP) this begs the question: Are there perhaps unwanted side effects for running your brain on permanent "debug mode"?
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    Hard to say. This is the first study I've seen that's tried to learn about microdosing. There's not a lot of good data on it, but it wouldn't be hard for me to believe that there are some side effects.
why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
I'm honestly surprised that you are able feel any effect from such a dose. Based on what i've heard from my friend's uncle's guardener's grandmother's neighbour, this could very much be just simple placebo effect. You know you are taking mushrooms, which have no effect, but you 'feel' better.
- jack_riminton 6y ago
  No it's very much not a placebo, your mind feels very very different. Colours seem brighter, occasional giggling, a lot more creative thought
TurkishPoptart 6y ago
How do you measure this amount? If mushrooms vary in shape and size...do you have to ground them up and take gelcaps to measure this appropriately?
- jack_riminton 6y ago
  Yes you grind them up and then use a 0.1 mg accuracy scale

internetslave 6y ago

I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.

simonswords82 6y ago
I get it - a drug is a drug - and like all drugs I am not saying that psychedelics are a cure all for all people. What I am saying is that it is depressing that we are only just seeing reports from formal sources that psychedelics could be useful for some people.
- encryptluks2 6y ago
  I mean we could just discuss the issue of freedom and making it illegal for people to grow and consume a mushroom and stop making it about just drugs. Marijuana is the same way. If it isn't for someone then they shouldn't do it and we should make as much information available about something available and provide safe environments, but making it illegal especially when plenty of people have experienced positive effects sometimes profound religious experiences it is just another mechanism of control and taking away freedom and natural rights.
  - ganzuul 6y ago
    Freedom is indeed one narrative. What is being (re-)constructed here is a narrative about plant medicine. The concepts used in each narrative are very different, so if we discussing both at the same time may confound each other.
    - encryptluks2 6y ago
      True, but the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as stated in the United States Declaration of Independence has it covered pretty well. Growing your own mushrooms or marijuana does not restrict on other individual rights if they do so willingly, and therefore getting caught up in treating it like a drug that needs to be studied more before they consider making it more accessible seems a bit absurd IMO. They're not being made in labs and grow naturally in many parts of the US.

MiddleEndian 6y ago

It will be looked back upon the same as alcohol prohibition.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
Meaning the prohibition was misguided but the drug itself is dangerous?
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  The drug has dangers, but they seem small compared to those of alcohol, even if largely orthogonal. It got banned because it wasn't understood in the best case, to curb the counterculture movement from the 60s in the worst, but it's always been hard to justify it with medical reasons; it's been just tagged along with cocaine or heroin and made bad by association.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    But if there hasn’t been significant medical research, how do we know there are no long-term dangers?
    - pope_meat 6y ago
      Why, the next best thing after significant medical research, anecdotal research! So far so good.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        So far in this topic, it’s been research of the “my friend said” kind. Which is even less reliable than direct anecdotal research.
        pope_meat 6y ago
        My friend doesn't like to admit to things that might be considered a crime, it's just how it goes in a police state.

renewiltord 6y ago

I used to think this but I think society has figured out something better. It has figured out that many people can use drugs effectively and many people are worthless on drugs. So what it does is that it allows you to use as many drugs as possible when you're something like a high-income professional and sort of criminalizes drug use among working class people. Your "test" for being a safe drug user is to have a lot to lose. Drug use is rampant in SF for instance. And I know lots of drug users: cocaine, MDMA, psychedelics. I used to think "why doesn't society just make you post a bond that lets you act in a slightly more unrestrained manner" and now I've realized society does! You just have to constantly be in a state of having too much to lose. Personally, I use shrooms frequently (I have some in my fridge right now) and LSD less frequently and MDMA rarely. All of these have been amazing eye opening experiences and I am a much better person for them. Thank God. All a coastal California perspective of course.

rmcpherson 6y ago
This is one of the travesties of drug enforcement and has compounded inequality in America. The imprisonment of the poor for nonviolent drug offenses continues today. That a wealthy drug user would laud this as a good outcome of drug policy is honestly flabbergasting, but perhaps shouldn’t be.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  It's really quite awful, isn't it? Completely inequitable and very unfair. But if I had to choose between equal misery and unequal prosperity, I think I choose the latter each time. I'd like for us to make psychedelics accessible to all, but since lots of people don't want that, I think I'll settle for keeping psychedelics accessible to me.

simion314 6y ago

I have zero experience with drugs, so I am wondering if there is a sugar/cigarette industry that put a lot of money into promoting it's products, then what will be different when drugs get legalized? Won't we repeat the history where companies make billions from this products, put them into ads to spread the use and addict people, suppress research into bad side effects etc,. Personally I think there are some good applications for mushrooms or marijuana but my instinct is that the greedy people would do what they do best, sucker people and make big money.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
Of course. And when multi billion dollar marketing budgets are put to work for weed and psychedelics, you can expect the same situation to occur as with tobacco or alcohol.
arcticbull 6y ago
Sure, for weed maybe. But psychedelics are very different. They're really, genuinely not addictive -- probably because they're not "fun." In fact, they're exhausting. You may feel a lot better after, the experience may be fascinating, but you're in absolutely no hurry to do it again. The whole thing lasts a few hours, but literally feels like months, with numerous epochs along the way. It's not like the kind of hollow calories of a bag of Cheetos, it's more like a long, difficult workout. That's hard to productize in that way.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  >probably because they're not "fun." You've been doing it wrong ;-) I'm not sure I've ever laughed so much or felt so connected to people. Just thinking about it is making me nostalgic.
- varispeed 6y ago
  I don't think that it is a "fun" factor that keeps people addicted. It's the fear of withdrawals.
  - 5y ago

SpikeMan 6y ago

Reminds me of the documentary about Addreal and it's prevalence in tech and other high-functioning people. It quickly mentioned (anonymously) a SV tech person that switched to microdosing mushrooms rather than Addreal, and how that made everything better for her (but the documentary cut short on following up her case).

giantg2 6y ago
I thought you were going a different direction with that. I don't know if it was the same documentary, but the one I saw was focused on the medical and moral effects and questions around the use of Adderall in the tech population, college students, and children. The main gist I got from it was that people were using it without knowing the possible side effects, like liver issues or mood issues. And that many of the people in tech didn't actually need it but were using it to enhance performance, and found a doctor willing to write to script.

pims 6y ago

Would your friend have advice or resources on how to give microdosing a try, especially for people who've never done psychedelics?

simonswords82 6y ago
Your best bet is to find a local friend or acquaintance who does have experience who can talk to you in detail about it and help source etc. Reddit is a good source of anecdotal information: https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/7fv5oj/beginners_guide_to_microdosing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/7fv5oj/beginner... https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/ This is also good: https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-explainer.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-explain...
- pims 6y ago
  Thank you.
mkeespiet 6y ago
I have quit some experience, would happy to help you out

TurkishPoptart 6y ago

How much mushroom matter is considered a microdose? Or, how is it best measured?

tomComb 6y ago
One way to approach is that a microdose for you is any dose that has no notable psychoactive effect. Practically, microdosing is often in the 20 - 100 mg range, and the lower threshold of a 'normal' psychoactive dose would be 600 - 800 mg (depending on the individual, eg. their weight, of course).

surround 5y ago

She might have been experiencing the effects of placebo. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26324219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26324219