Magic mushrooms - can they treat depression?

[done_so_done]

Hello everybody,

Was anybody on this forum helped by magic mushrooms? I have tried pretty much everything in this world to help me with my depression but nothing helped. I stumbled upon some articles recently that claimed it may help with anxiety and depression. I'm thinking about trying it before I edge closer to the final step...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[Soul]

Not mushrooms per se but I feel hallucinogens had a very positive impact on me.

 

[not_a_robot]

Had no serious effect and I took huge doses. It just felt like fuzzy ecstasy,no halucinations or anything. No effect on depression. Did it four times in a few months. Had to take giant doses because small/normal doses felt like nothing at all. I finally started eating the entire 50$ bags at once just to make sure I wasn't getting shitakes or something.

 

[soda_pressed]

I felt slightly better after taking mushrooms, however I'd advise caution.
It may make you feel better, but it might make you feel worse.

 

[lovemelovemenot]

I experimented with psychedelics a bit before. I'd say they can help, and have helped people before, but it's not the overall solution just like a lot of treatments. It will help you see things from a different perspective and open your mind to new views so that you can process things in a different way, but your brain is also very sensitive on any psychedelic so be careful with large doses. I also feel that psychs force you to face reality, so if there's any past trauma built up or things you're pushing down, it might come up during a trip. Having a bad trip is not nessciarily a terrible thing all the time though, it could be just what you need. Overall, I think they can be used as a tool if you choose to use them that way, but psychs are nothing to play with and can send you farther below what you already were if you're not careful.

 

[cornflowerblue]

Hello everybody,

Was anybody on this forum helped by magic mushrooms? I have tried pretty much everything in this world to help me with my depression but nothing helped. I stumbled upon some articles recently that claimed it may help with anxiety and depression. I'm thinking about trying it before I edge closer to the final step...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Try www.clinicaltrials.gov and www.maps.org for legal sources where a doctor will make sure it's safe for you to try

Hello everybody,

Was anybody on this forum helped by magic mushrooms? I have tried pretty much everything in this world to help me with my depression but nothing helped. I stumbled upon some articles recently that claimed it may help with anxiety and depression. I'm thinking about trying it before I edge closer to the final step...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

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maps.org

 

[Throwaway9787]

I've heard they can both treat it and make it worse

 

[Shamana]

Hello everybody,

Was anybody on this forum helped by magic mushrooms? I have tried pretty much everything in this world to help me with my depression but nothing helped. I stumbled upon some articles recently that claimed it may help with anxiety and depression. I'm thinking about trying it before I edge closer to the final step...Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Have helped me in periods. Would start experimenting with low dosages to begin with so you get feel for it.

 

[Temporarilyabsurd]

How to Change Your Mind - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

is a book about it.

I know @TiredHorse has mentioned them a few times on this forum .

After years of superstitious fear ( religious BS childhood ) I am
up for trying them myself .

It would be good to have a 'trip manager' though .

I'm still very nervous about them ...

( Until I became aware of 'sleep paralysis' I still believed ( against my desire not to !) that some
kind of negative supernatural force was at play ... :/ )

 

[TiredHorse]

I've heard that Michael Pollan book is very good.

It would be good to have a 'trip manager' though .

I had a good friend "babysitting" me on my first trip. Having her there was good peace of mind. If you have a trusted friend who can do that for you, I highly recommend it. At the very least, make sure you're in an environment where you feel safe. Mindset and setting are imperative to having a good experience.

I was the straight-arrow nerd all through school, never drank, never did pot --and I went to a *really* hippie high school where drugs were ridiculously common/available. I didn't try shrooms until I was 46. I wish I'd tried them decades sooner.

 

[Soul]

I concur completely: Having a trusted "guide" at first is very important, and the right environment always makes a difference.

 

[TiredHorse]

One other thing, @Temporarilyabsurd : if you're just planning to microdose, you probably don't need to bother with a guide. The conscious effects of 1/5th of a mushroom are so mild as to be almost imperceptible.

 

[Temporarilyabsurd]

I like this stuff ...


So , I listened to 'food of the gods' by Terrence MacKenna .

He has an intrigueing theory that the human race was abunch of tripping freaks for most of it's early
evolution and that things were just awesome back then .
Then , for whatever reason the dirty Patriachalists took over , banned mind altering hallucinogens and turned us into materialist
hate filled sadists .
I kind of like the idea .

My own spin on this is an explanation as to why GobekliTepe was buried intentionally.
It was the crazed rationalist grain growing city folk getting rid of that good old time
religion of the tripping matriachy hunter gatherer days ....
And we all know how that worked out .

One other thing, @Temporarilyabsurd : if you're just planning to microdose, you probably don't need to bother with a guide. The conscious effects of 1/5th of a mushroom are so mild as to be almost imperceptible.

Cheers for the advice , that sounds like a good idea.
I was thinking along the lines of building up to a blockbuster dose .

 

[TiredHorse]

I was thinking along the lines of building up to a blockbuster dose .

I wouldn't use that approach. You'll build up a tolerance, so when you go to experience a large, entheogenic dose, it'll take you a lot more shrooms than if you hadn't been building up.

My experience: I tried two entheogenic doses, J1 and J2, about a year apart, with other people there (J1, my guide and my ex; and J2, just my ex). I saw pretty colors, and it was entertaining as all get out, but neither was Earth-shaking. J1 was a considerably lower doseage, and served to reassure me the experience wasn't dangerous for me, so was probably worthwhile for that. J2 was considerably higher doseage. I then tried an enthoegenic dose, J3, solo, about five months after J2 This time was Earth-shaking: major intuitive revelations, as well as the entertaining visual effects. I did another enthoegenic dose, J4, about a month after that; again solo. J4 was also quite emotionally powerful, but not as much as J3. I suspect because I had developed a tolerance from the trip only a month before.

I didn't log J1 or J2, but:

J3: 8 mushrooms, minced and steeped in hot water for 40 minutes. Ingested 2:30 after breakfast. Noticeable effects --aura, discoordination-- :10 minutes after ingestion. On the floor, non-cogent ~:29 minutes after ingestion. Beginning to return 4:30 after ingestion. 5:30 after ingestion, lucid, coordinated, very calm, still a bit wobbly. Completely returned 7:00 after ingestion.

J4: 9 mushrooms/1.175g; same preparation as for J3. Completely under @ :40 min. after ingestion. Beginning to return 4:10 after ingestion. Lucid and coordinated 4:50 after ingestion. Completely returned 6:30 after ingestion. Note the reduced durations of the shrooms' effects.

I then began microdosing, and for a while microdosing was amazing at reducing my anxiety, but after four months I had built up enough tolerance that I had quadrupled my dose to get the same therapeutic effect.

I suspect that the determining factor for J3 and J4 being so effective were that I was solo --I tend to be very self-conscious around other people, and need to remain in control of myself/the situation, which may have undermined my hopes for the shrooms. J4 was somewhat shorter in duration of effects from J3, I suspect because it was only a month after J3 and I was experiencing some tolerance. I am also nearly certain that the constant use of shrooms for microdosing led to a tolerance for them and their loss of efficacy at the end of four months.

All of which is to say that I would take the opposite approach to what you suggest: I would start with a major entheogenic trip and use that as a "loading dose" to begin microdosing a week later.

Here is the site I use to inform my own experimentation: https://thethirdwave.co/

 

[Temporarilyabsurd]

@TiredHorse : Thanks for the information and your advice .

 

[bacardirum]

Just be careful as from personal experience when using, if in a dark mood and not mentally correct the trip is not nice, but if feeling positive and loving life the trip can be amazing. My doses were always quite large, usually would eat 150-250 mushrooms. I would never take magic mushrooms if I was feeling sad, suicidal etc, a recipe for disaster. I never suffered from depression when I used to take them, and always felt upbeat next day with heightened senses, though from experiencing one major bad trip (a time I should not have took them as was with wrong company), you got to be careful. Taking magic mushrooms is like getting on a bus but not quite knowing what stop you will get off at.

 

[mplslonely]

I recently did a trip to Amsterdam for the sole purpose of trying out mushrooms (truffles). It isn't a magic cure all bullet. It has helped both me and the girlfriend a lot with our anxiety. We don't care as much to what other people think and that made us more confident. I was in a death spiral and close finalizing my CTB. I have been more socialable to random people, cleaning :gasp:, and trying to fix a couple things in my life that have been I should CTB so I don't have to deal with them.

All because of the increased news articles and the first time I heard about the health benefits was on public radio in Dec 2013.

 

[done_so_done]

Thanks to everybody for your input, it is greatly appreciated!

 

[Rez_MbChB]

I suggest you try microdosing ket, worked wonders for me

 

[GeorgeJL]

I've used psychedelics 2c-b and 4-aco-dmt a lot. The best effects was when I mixed them together. 4-aco-dmt is known as synthetic mushrooms.

So I mixed them one time and was rolling in sublime bliss for hours, it was a magical mystical experience. The universe was flowing through me as I was melting into the couch. Words can't begin to describe what I experienced. Next time I took them I bumped up the dose and had a challenging trip. But in a good way, I was facing my unforgiveness and laziness head on. I didn't hallucinate problems that were not real, these were real things that happened. I had motivation for like 3 weeks after that.

Overall I would say you can start off slow and gradually raise the dose over time. You can buy almost any psychedelic off of the darknet. I've brought many psychedelics off of several darknet markets using bitcoins.