Plants and fungi can be powerful allies on getting your shit together it seems. I've made many magical friends over the years, let's try and befriend some shrooms this time, shall we?
I’ve been fighting depression with mixed results for the past 10 years or so. I’ve done as many SSRIs as I have fingers in my hands and it took me years to find one that would actually work. Lately, after being out of SSRIs for quite a while now, I could feel myself slipping into depression once again.
That feeling of “oh shit, here we go again” I get from the dawn of a depressive state is a funny thing. My therapist would say it is good that I can feel it before the episode actually starts, but I think that is absolutely debatable, because I’ve caught myself wanting to give in way more than once. Anyways, I digress.
The fact is that I wasn’t, and still ain’t, willing to go back to SSRIs. I will admit that I absolutely enjoy being emotionally numb (it makes my loud autistic emotions shut the fuck up), but all the other side effects are nothing but annoying. Oh my God, don’t get me started on the libido issues…
I decided to talk with my doctor and see if we could come up with something, anything to help. I feel lucky that I found a specialist in phytotherapy and medicinal cannabis that has been in my life for the past year or so, helping me overcome the 200 different pills I used to take. After some talking we settled on two new friends: Mario’s shroom and a shaggy dude with white hair.
I will write a little bit about Lion’s Mane on a different note, for sure. I have quite a bit to say about that dude. For now, I want to talk about Mario’s best psychedelic friend: the Amanita Muscaria, also known as the “Fly Agaric” mushroom. By the way, no one knows exactly why it got the “fly agaric” moniker, but the best bet is that it came from its historical use to kill flies.
Nowadays, there are two main uses for it: get high as fuck, or treat a series of mental health issues (whatever comes first). Of course the dosage makes the poison, so while you would be looking at a dose of eight to fifteen grams of dried shrooms for a nice trip, we are talking about doses as small as 250mg of dried shrooms for proper microdosing.
Dosing shrooms, specially amanitas, is extremely difficult: the amount of active compounds varies a lot between specimens, there is a lack of good research on how those compounds affect people, and by consequence how much of it you should take. Although I do not want to get into the nerdy details about the shroom yet, I think this is an important remark just so you don’t go making stupid mistakes because a furry on the internet is doing psychedelics and told you to “take 50 grams”. Don’t. At least not until we discuss the nerdy stuff and you are better informed.
For my treatment we settled on a liquid extract because it is easier to dose, doesn’t taste like damp ass, and can be stored for very long without degrading. The process required to make the extract also guarantees that pretty much all of the ibotenic acid (premuscimol) goes through decarboxylation and becomes muscimol. That makes the extract safer (because ibotenic acid is a potent neurotoxin), and stronger than the dried mushrooms and its typical preparations like teas and infusions.
The instructions on how to use it were clear: start at a single drop and increase it at a rate of one drop per day up to a maximum of five. Drug titration is really important here, because both the premuscimol traces and muscimol itself can be strongly emetic (they make you go 🤮) and people’s tolerance to them varies wildly. With that in mind of course I started with three drops instead.
Thankfully I didn’t feel any nausea, but at such low dosages (which would be equivalent to around 250mg of dried shrooms) Amanita Muscaria works mostly as a weak sedative. I did not expect much from it, of course, but I got such a good night of sleep that it was love at first sight. There were no dreams but also no night awakenings whatsoever.
I must say that I was also lucky that none of my little cubs decided to wake up at night that day, but overall it was an amazing experience. I would absolutely use it just as a sleep aid if I didn’t have better reasons to increase the dose to five drops the next day.
Amanita is better taken at night, when you can benefit from the sleep inducing effects of muscimol. Even if you are looking for a high, its first direct effect is sleepiness because it is a potent GABA-A receptor full agonist. You can, however, push through that initial eepy-ass phase and get some of the other beneficial effects. At the five drops mark, I felt more relaxed and less anxious but that’s pretty much it.
I don’t think I have to say I had another amazing night that day. Honestly, I consider the Fly Agaric as the best sleep aid I’ve had in my life (and oh boy do I have experience with those). The effects were tangible, but still far from what I would consider as ideal for the purpose of controlling my depression.
That’s because, as people’s tolerances vary a lot, some individuals might require doses that will push them into psycholytic territory (think a less deeply altered state of mind). Being one of those lucky bastards, we decided to push the drop count higher, moving from five to ten and up to a total of fifteen drops (the equivalent to around 1.25g of dried shrooms).
I can’t say I felt much of a difference between five and ten drops, except maybe for a considerably stronger sedative effect. At fifteen drops, though? That’s where stuff got interesting. As the active compounds are more readily available in the extract, effects can be felt after about 30 minutes: colors became brighter, thoughts slowed down, I wanted to smile and overall just have a good time.
IT. WAS. A M A Z I N G.
I had some work to do that day and I was able to concentrate on it effortlessly. I felt creative, open minded. The effects peaked around two hours after intake and I honestly just… forgot. I forgot I was sad, I forgot I was anxious. Once I was finished with work I wanted to sit down and just be there. Got something to read, something to listen and a nice drink.
Sadly, you are not supposed to microdose daily for long periods because, again, research on this area is very sparse. My current regime is fifteen drops twice a week. Feels nice. The effects linger, with some of the side effects also lingering. One of my autistic traits is that sometimes I just do not want to talk or interact with people and that was considerably reinforced by the shrooms.
So, it’s not just good vibes. There are some things one must pay attention: driving felt dangerous the next day because I didn’t feel like I was there for real. Sometimes I went full autistic on the non-verbal stuff and made my wife mad because I simply could not care to respond (still think it was worth it 😂).
I was also really not that careful. The titration from one to fifteen drops was supposed to take at least two weeks and I did it in five days. So please, although I am giving you a report on what this stupid jackal did, I hope you do things The Right Way™. Including the obligatory reading of my next note where I’ll go full nerd about my new friend.
See you there!