1Considering Psilocybin
Before I started this book, the last trip I had taken was in 2011. I took two grams of the most popular magic mushroom, Psilocybe cubensis, with a few other people in a meadow high in the San Juan Mountains. It was a beautiful Colorado day. The views were so long and so wide, I could see two rainstorms at once, though they were far away and many miles apart. The landscape rippled to the west, a giant wrinkled bedspread of red rocks and green pine forests. It would have been beautiful under any circumstances. On mushrooms, it was extraordinary.
My trip was mostly merry, a journey that took me from curiosity—What is that scratchy noise?—to amazement—It’s the busy lives of a million insects crawling through the grass, navigating the gargantuan obstacle of me—to uncontrollable giggles as I realized I am as much a part of the landscape to them as the rocks are to me. Tripping like this, joyful and safe, defines the trips many people take today and the trips people have taken ever since magic mushrooms were first introduced to the nonindigenous world in the late 1950s. They were and are—or can be anyway—a way of altering one’s perception that leads to a greater appreciation of nature, of the marvelous details we don’t normally notice. How much more fascinating is a rain shower when you see it is composed of countless individual drops, glinting like little pear-shaped mirrors. How delightful to be alive amid all this!
There are and always will be meadow trippers, folks who use psychedelics to enhance their experience in nature, to free their minds from its bindings for a while. But just because someone is tripping in a meadow doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and glistening raindrops. I’ve been in the woods with fellow trippers who spent the whole adventure puking or facing realizations about mistakes they’ve made with their families or friends and then wandered among their fellow trippers in search of someone coherent enough to help them talk it through. I’ve spent hours—or what seemed like hours—swatting mosquitoes off a comatose friend as he lay in the grass, traveling behind his sunglasses to foreign lands.
Some people have bad trips, too. Some even suffer psychotic breaks, though according to the scientific community, a person diagnosed with (or who has close family history of) schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is the most likely candidate. But we didn’t know that at the hippie boarding school I attended in the 1970s. We didn’t even have mental health counselors. We had a bad-tempered nurse who dispensed the narcotic Darvon for everything from menstrual cramps to learning your parents were getting divorced. There wasn’t much talk about mental illness in those days. When a kid fell apart, we dorm-mates assumed they had become undone by psychedelics, which at that time were widely hyped as capable of frying your brain. I remember one girl who burst into rooms, long hair wild, pimples aflame, hyper and articulate and brilliant at math. One day she disappeared from school. Just gone. She wrote me a letter that said how much she missed her friends, and then I never heard from her again. We all thought she was sent away because she took psychedelics.
Today, I think she might have been diagnosed with ADHD. The art and science of mental health diagnosis has changed a lot since the ’70s—some would argue, I think, that it’s at times excessive. In the late 1990s, I met an administrator at a private grade school in New York City who encouraged parents to put their hyper little boys on ADHD medication, an amphetamine known around town as the “good-grade pill.” A generation of teenagers have been prescribed antidepressants to deal with depression and then more prescriptions to deal with the side effects. A twenty-year-old relative of mine at one point was taking three different medications to treat her depression. She told me all those meds made her feel like she had lost track of her personality. It seems to me that the resurgence of mainstream study in psychedelics to treat mental disorders, beginning in 2006 after a thirty-year hiatus, has coincided with the evolution of mental health diagnosis and the subsequent need for new, effective mental health drugs. I know firsthand that the need is great.
In 2014, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times arguing for the rescheduling of psilocybin, the psychoactive molecule present in a wide range of mushrooms but especially in the genus Psilocybe. Rescheduling psilocybin from its current status as a drug with no potential medical use doesn’t imply blanket legalization. No one is talking about making psilocybin available at your local bodega or allowing children to purchase the stuff like gum, but it does have great therapeutic promise for an array of disorders and should be moved to a drug category that would make research less arduous and allow for compassionate-use provisions. Within hours of publication, I received hundreds of emails from people who were suffering from depression or PTSD or other disorders and wanted to know how they might get mushrooms. Even folks with complaints that didn’t meet the standards of a diagnosis wanted to know more.
Psilocybin can positively impact nonsufferers of mental ailments. They did for me, and I wrote about it. The first time I ate magic mushrooms as an adult was in 2009, again on a mountaintop in the San Juans. I experienced several small epiphanies—the kinds of self-realizations that are the rewards of hours of therapy—but one in particular remained with me. As the drug wore off, I went back to my hotel room to take a hot bath. For a moment, I thought that might not be a good idea, as bath time is when women my age can be very self-critical, and I didn’t want the sight of my thickening waistline to veer me into a bad trip. But while in the tub, I envisioned my body as a ship that was taking me through life, and that’s what made it beautiful. With that change in perception, I stopped feeling regretful about losing my looks. Instead, I felt overwhelming gratitude for having a body at all. It was a tremendous relief that I still feel today. I received a letter from a gentleman after I published my editorial who wanted his wife to try the drug because she felt so badly about how age had ravaged her beauty.
The response to that op-ed was overwhelming, and I felt like I had irresponsibly unleashed hope where hope was truly premature. I tried to respond to the loads of correspondence from strangers who shared such intimate despair. I was deeply moved by their stories, but I really didn’t have anything to offer. I did have coffee with one man—his ex-wife had reached out to me requesting I at least talk with him—and he cried the whole time.
I feel like I have so much more I could offer that fellow today. First, I’d make sure he understood there is no prescription. You cannot reliably eat magic mushrooms and expect whatever is plaguing you to disappear, like taking an aspirin for a headache. The scientists in this field are plugging away, trying to figure out what the abilities and limitations of the drug are, but that research is in its early stages. And the job is made all the more difficult because we do not all act the same under the influence of psilocybin.
But I’d also tell him there is a wealth of helpful anecdotal information if he is willing to accept the fact that different people experience the drug differently. Over the years, I have talked with hundreds of people who use these mushrooms for a variety of reasons, from entertainment to therapy to spiritual awakening, who have experienced personal insights into work and self, and have generously shared their experiences. I’ve also spent many, many hours reading the various online psychedelic forums, mostly Reddit and Shroomery. (Forum is singular, fora is the plural, but to avoid confusion I’ll use forums.) The demographics of these forums seem to skew white and male, which limits the variety of experiences reported. Nonetheless, the subcategories (like r/badtrip) provide a wealth of views (and sometimes risky opinions) on all aspects of mushroom use and its effects that simply don’t exist elsewhere. As the writer Ed Prideaux pointed out, “Go on to any psychedelic reddit page, and you’re likely to find a much more genuine picture of what’s happening in the ‘psychedelic renaissance’ than any asinine puff piece on CNN.”
One thing is very clear: different doses make different trips. But regardless of dose size, the chances of positive outcomes are likely increased when trippers manage their expectations and employ caution. This can be accomplished by understanding the basic pharmacology (to the extent it is currently understood), the general effects that varying doses seem to occasion, the importance of a safe setting, and the companionship of trustworthy people. Psilocybin isn’t mechanistic the way a statin is. It’s neurological. For example, I benefited from the mushroom emotionally because the drug offered me the opportunity to see myself and how I interact with the world from a new perspective. That in turn affected how I felt about myself and others.
When I am writing a book, I usually have a novel that I read at night to relax. As is often the case, I encounter something that resonates with what I am thinking about during the day. So it was with the murder mystery The Music of the Spheres. In it, a character paraphrases Isaac Newton: “It is our greater or lesser knowledge of constant factors that constitutes their relative stability.” In the book, he is applying it to astronomy. But it applies to tripping as well. What you can know and what you realize you can’t know about psilocybin and its effects are a measure of the degree of confidence you can have in the experience overall. Ultimately, that’s determined by Dose + Intention − Risk.
I am going to dive deep into these knowns and unknowns in subsequent chapters, but let’s start with an overview of the key points when considering psilocybin: what the drug is and what it basically does, how dosing is measured to determine trip types, and the importance of setting an intention and making a plan to mitigate the risks.
The Basic Pharmacology
When we talk about magic mushrooms, we are usually talking about species of mushrooms in the Psilocybe genus, almost all of which contain the tryptamines psilocybin and psilocin. Tryptamine is a type of alkaloid, an organic compound that plants and fungi produce that has profound pharmacological effects on us. And indeed, these molecules are responsible for the psychoactive effects we experience. Other alkaloids are present in trace amounts, too, like baeocystin, norbaeocystin, and norpsilocin, though no one really knows whether they modify our trips. But I don’t see the wisdom in dismissing them: I like to think of the magic in these mushrooms as a cocktail of psychoactive compounds dominated by psilocybin and psilocin. Psilocybin and psilocin are classic psychedelics, like mescaline, LSD, and DMT, and they all operate on the brain similarly.* Here’s how.
After you swallow it, the stew of acids in your gut breaks the mushroom down. Acids break apart the psilocybin molecule, too. They strip off one of the molecule’s components, the phosphate group. Psilocybin without its phosphate group is a different molecule, called psilocin. And psilocin is a molecule slippery enough to pass through the blood-brain barrier, that semiporous gateway between whatever is in your bloodstream and the ultrasensitive environs of the brain. So even though we say we are tripping on psilocybin, we’re actually tripping on psilocin.
Psilocin is also present in the mushroom—though to a lesser degree. It passes through the blood-brain barrier along with the psilocin made from dephosphorylated psilocybin. The more psilocin naturally present in the mushroom, the faster the effects will come on because there is no conversion process happening in your gut—it goes right to the brain.
Psilocin is the molecule that causes the psychedelic effects we feel when we eat magic mushrooms, influencing our perceptions both sensory and emotional. That’s accomplished because the chemical structure of psilocin is very similar to the chemical structure of the neurotransmitter serotonin, so similar that it can dock into serotonin receptors on neural cells and stimulate the transmission of electric impulses from cell to cell along serotonergic pathways in the brain. Your brain accepts psilocin as if it were serotonin, but of course it is not, and it doesn’t do the same things. What it’s doing in the brain, exactly, is hypothetical, but the prevailing notion is that psilocin affects—even disrupts—established patterns of electric impulses in regions involved with mood, memory, cognition, and the senses. It’s as if, wrote the author Andy Letcher, “a new, alien but curiously compatible piece of software is thrown into the brain’s computer, disrupting its normal operations in novel and unexpected ways.”
A psilocybin trip typically lasts four to six hours, though an eight-hour trip is not uncommon. It doesn’t cause a hangover like alcohol, but you may very well be tired or headachy after tripping. For me, after a trip, I feel mentally spent, like I’ve been reading all night, but emotionally opened, like a just-unclogged sink.
Different Doses Make Different Trips
A warning when it comes to different doses and the trips they may occasion. There is no one-size-fits-all dosing schedule. A big dose for me might barely register for someone else, and that’s not necessarily because of gender, age (of adults), body weight, or metabolism. Those factors don’t seem to matter, I suppose, since we all have the same size brain. Dose size cannot be predictably reproduced from one person to the next. My friend who took what is generally considered a heroic dose, five grams of a moderately strong species of Psilocybe mushroom, traveled in his mind to foreign lands. However, someone with a history of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use might spend the whole afternoon feeling frustrated, unable to let go, buzzy and distracted, but not tripping. No cool sensory experiences, no euphoria, no revelations: just disappointment in the drug and themselves for being unable to benefit from it. And someone who took two grams, expecting to feel one with nature without getting lost on the trail, might end up on their back for four hours in some kind of hyperspace of their own minds. All this could happen. All this has happened.
The only way to judge tolerance is to start with very low doses and, if appropriate, increase incrementally. This is called titrating, and it’s one of the ways many trippers individualize their dose. That said, here are general dosing guidelines for Psilocybe cubensis. These guidelines are widely available on psychedelic sites and in books like Medicinal Mushrooms by Christopher Hobbs, an herbalist with the sober temperament of a high school health ed teacher.
A microdose is a subperceptual dose. That means you don’t experience any psychedelic effects. It doesn’t affect your daily routine. If you are microdosing properly, meaning you are consuming a subperceptual dose, then you can exercise and eat the way you normally do. You should be able to drive, attend to your job, go to the grocery store, help the kids with homework.
Microdoses are usually taken to manage mood or productivity. Those who microdose psilocybin to address mood claim it doesn’t elevate their frame of mind so much as remove their negative state, that the minuscule amount of serotonin receptor stimulus they are getting brings them to a normal baseline, or to paraphrase Ayelet Waldman in her book about microdosing LSD, A Really Good Day, it just helps you feel not shitty. It also helps some people cope with the stresses of normal life and stay chill. Those who microdose magic mushrooms for productivity claim it helps them focus and stay energized at work. I found that to be true for me.
A microdose applies to any psychedelic, but in the case of magic mushrooms, it is considered 50–500 milligrams of dried Psilocybe cubensis, the most used species, ground fine to measure. For me, a dose of over 160 milligrams is perceptible, depending on the cultivar of P. cubensis. (More on that in a minute.) There are many scientists who are skeptical that microdosing does anything at all and believe the benefits people claim are due to the placebo effect. That may be true. But a plethora of anecdotal testimony suggests microdosing does have an effect, so much so that researchers haven’t given up on it. On the other hand, lots of people swear by homeopathy, too, and there’s no evidence it does anything.
A low dose between 500 milligrams and 1 gram may produce euphoric feelings and sensory enhancement. It can make you feel a little high, a little more enthusiastic, a little more excited, a little more appreciative. A friend of mine, a real estate guy, took about half a gram of a strong P. cubensis cultivar and went to the ballet—usually a bit of a chore for him, but his wife likes it—and he said it was the best, most incredible time he’d ever had at the ballet. One to 2.5 grams may produce some psychedelic effects as well. In mid-twentieth-century clinical trials of LSD, frequent low-dose use called psycholytic therapy was studied for its therapeutic value. These are, for many people, manageable doses—what Christopher Hobbs described to me as a museum dose, meaning you can go to a museum and enjoy yourself without freaking out. Some use low doses as a substitute for drinking on a night out—you get high, but there’s no hangover. But doses this size can be tricky. Many times, I’ve heard stories about people who have taken 2 grams of magic mushrooms, thinking they’d just have a super time at their wedding reception, a music festival, an afternoon at the beach, and it’s turned out to be a full-on unable-to-manage-things-like-making-change-at-a-store kind of experience. I think that’s because at a dose this size—and this is true of microdosing as well—the psilocybin content of different cultivars can make a substantial difference.
Of all the Psilocybe species that contain psilocybin and psilocin, P. cubensis is the most used because it is easily cultivated. But even then, there can be differing potencies of P. cubensis cultivars. Albino Penis Envy, for example, is significantly stronger than Golden Teacher. It’s like horse breeds. A Clydesdale and a Shetland pony are both Equus ferus caballus, but one is four times as heavy as the other. Someone taking 2 grams of P. cubensis may think it’s just a museum dose, but if the cultivar is Albino Penis Envy, the amount of psilocybin that 2 grams delivers may be significantly more. At this intermediate dose level of 2 grams, I’ve had a significant enough experience where I didn’t want to move, but I’ve also had a very light experience, where I could go to a café and order a coffee. Maybe it had something to do with the cultivars, but on the other hand, maybe it had something to do with that ultimate wild card, my frame of mind at the time. In the stronger experience, I had fasted and participated in a subdued and ceremonious nighttime event. In the lighter experience—or maybe this made the experience lighter out of necessity—I wanted to keep an eye on my husband, who was on a deeper trip. One characteristic of low-dose tripping is that sometimes you can pull it together if needed. On a high dose, that may be more difficult.
A high dose is generally considered to be 2.5–5 grams and will likely produce psychedelic effects like visual and audio distortions when eyes are open, and vivid waking dreams, memory retrieval, and stream-of-consciousness narratives when eyes are closed. It can cause more intense euphoria and possibly ego dissolution, a phenomenon associated with mystical experiences and mental breakthroughs. Two and a half or 3 grams dried P. cubensis mushroom—about the equivalent of 25–30 milligrams synthetic psilocybin—is a typical therapeutic dose used in clinical trials, retreats, and ceremonies. In conjunction with therapy, a high dose of psilocybin has shown positive effects for some people suffering from illnesses like addictions, treatment-resistant depression, OCD, and other disorders. That’s what the rapturous headlines you have been reading refer to. People who take high-dose psilocybin often speak of the benefits of integrating their trip by talking with someone afterward, either a peer group or a trained therapist, and examining their experience to articulate whatever learnings they believe can be gleaned. It has been characterized as an “unfolding process … a continuous unraveling of insights about oneself and one’s relationships which can take place over weeks or months.” This can be especially helpful if you are distressed after a bad trip.
On a dose this size, it is common to feel some anxiety coming up, and it may linger, even take your trip sideways. Likewise, magic mushrooms, really on any dose, can bring up a lot of emotional stuff. I know someone who took a microdose of 150 milligrams and, while driving to the hardware store, became overwhelmed with nostalgia and burst into tears. He had to pull over to recover. Emotional bloodletting of this sort isn’t uncommon, and for some people, it is cathartic, but of course it can also be confusing and feel inappropriate. On a high-dose trip, it’s a good idea to have a trusted trip sitter around, someone who can remind you everything is okay, that the trip is temporary, and generally make sure you don’t do something stupid.
Five grams and up is known colloquially as a heroic dose. The term was coined by the ethnobotanist Terence McKenna. A heroic dose can lead to ego dissolution, alternate realities, and challenging but transformative insights—not the kind of trip to do at a bar mitzvah. On a dose of this size, you may forget you are tripping and transcend your existence altogether. But these strong trips can be tough. It’s not uncommon to throw up or lose bladder control. One tripper I spoke with said he uses magic mushrooms “periodically, for a burning bush moment.” But once he did 15 grams of P. cubensis. “That was bad. I got really scared, my temperature spiked, I had to get into an ice shower, I puked. For me, no astral projections. It was like having the flu.” People have described terrifying experiences, too. In one trip report I read, a fellow visualized hanging himself. Another spent his trip watching the world blow up over and over again. But people have also described ecstatic revelations about how to live their lives and insights into the nature of, well, everything. Such life-changing realizations can even lead to course redirection, which is why you should never do something dramatic after a trip like telling your spouse you want a divorce. It makes sense to me to sit on a revelation for a while before hitting Send.
But don’t confuse a heroic dose taken as a “tool for exploration” with a double-digit dose taken because you can’t get off on a smaller one, as occurs with some people. People who take heroic doses usually expect a big light show. To those who must consume lots of psilocybin to feel any effect at all, there’s nothing heroic about it.
By the same token, it’s not so unusual for people to brag about how much psilocybin they took regardless of whether it was planned or not. It strikes me as a kind of chest thumping, like competing in a hot chili pepper–eating contest. The last thing anyone should do, in my opinion, is judge themselves based on the amount of psilocybin they’ve taken. More than once, I’ve had trippers brush me off when I’ve tried to express my psychedelic experience on 2 grams, like it really wasn’t an experience at all, and I was just embellishing. At the time, it made me feel inadequate. When I asked Dennis McKenna about the implications of large versus small doses—he’s kind of the King Solomon of psychedelics, an ethnopharmacologist specializing in hallucinogenic plants and brother of Terence—he said it takes courage to confront your inner fears and trepidations at any level of consumption. So that’s what I keep in mind: how you perceive your experience is the only thing that matters, because the effects of a given dose are ultimately determined by each person’s own brain chemistry.
Copyright © 2024 by Eugenia Bone
