Psychedelic mushrooms already have a reputation for helping people open their minds and broaden their perspective on the world. They have shown an ability to combat mental disorders like depression and anxiety. Now, research is showing that the magic mushrooms can actually help physically rebuild a damaged brain.
In a study conducted by the University of South Florida and published in 2013 in the Experimental Brain Research journal, researchers measured the effects of mushrooms on mice that had been conditioned to fear certain stimuli.
The results were striking: Not only could psilocybin, the main active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, help them get over their fear, it promoted cell growth and regeneration in their brains.
Psilocybin Mushrooms
Via: Atomazul
During the experiment, mice were exposed to an auditory tone while receiving an electric shock, training them to fear the noise even when the shock was not administered.
Mice that received low doses of psilocybin, however, were quickly able to shed their aversion to the tone, while mice that did not take the substance took longer to return to normal. “They stopped freezing; they lost their fear,” study co-author Dr. Juan Sanchez-Ramos said to Live Science.
What’s more, the psychedelic mice showed growth in new brain cells, perhaps erasing memories of the fear response. Researchers think that the psilocybin is binding to brain receptors that stimulate growth and healing, acting on the hippocampus, a small part of the brain that is essential to learning and forming memories. Since PTSD is thought to result from a similar response in which patients cannot separate a stimulus from a traumatic event, psilocybin could perhaps help them heal their brains just like it did for the mice.
“Memory, learning, and the ability to relearn that a once threatening stimuli is no longer a danger absolutely depends on the ability of the brain to alter its connections,” study leader Dr. Briony Catlow of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development said to Real Clear Science. “We believe that neuroplasticity plays a critical role in psilocybin accelerating fear extinction.”
“It is highly possible that in the future we will continue these studies since many interesting questions have come up from these experiments,” Catlow said. “The hope is that we can extend the findings to humans in clinical trials.”
Psychedelics work, in part, by overriding the “default mode network” in the brain, which is thought to be responsible for wandering minds, self-criticism and an inability to focus on the outside world. Instead, the substances help people focus on living in the moment, similar to many Eastern meditation practices. That can also help with PTSD as well as other mental disorders like depression.
“People with depression have overactive default mode networks and so ruminate on themselves, on their inadequacies, on their badness, that they are worthless, that they have failed — to an extent that is sometimes delusional,” David Nutt, of the Imperial College London’s Neuropsychopharmacology Unit, said to Natural News. “[P]silocybin appears to block that activity and stops this obsessive rumination.”
The therapeutic value seems clear. “[Psilocybin] facilitates extinction of the classically conditioned fear response, and this, and similar agents, should be explored as potential treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions,” the study concludes. However, despite its demonstrated success and unlimited potential, psilocybin is currently banned by the U.S. government, considered a drug of abuse with no medical value.
Good for you, and fun too? Tastes like shit though
Tastes great in chocolate.
Yougurt!
Best way to do it is crush it up small bits and take it down with a shot of lemon juice.
The BEST way to do them is freshly picked and then eaten as they are. Or make a brew up. I’d go for about three to five hundred for a really nice trip.
Three to five hundred of WHAT?
Fresh mushrooms are much much weaker than properly dried out typical very potent tasting shrooms…no pun intended, yet the pun DOES fit, do not take 300-500 dried mushrooms. You might go on your trip and not come back to reality.
A bagel with cream cheese and Shrooms. IS the way to go.
We used to take them together with raisins in the times of Margaret Thatcher who wanted to ban mushrooms growing in the meadows.
They say they used a low dose, does anyone know what the dose was? and its human equivalent? I’ve been using them for depression and with each dose (spaced at least a week apart) the effect is less and less, now seven grams has practically no effect, to the point that the last time it made me even more depressed. So I’m wondering if I should just do a low dose instead. Thank you for any info you can provide.
When they say low dose they usually mean low enough to not really bring on any hallucinatory effects. And any persons tolerance to mushrooms will drop in 3 days. So if you take an 8th on monday, and take another tuesday, you may not feel it on tuesday. but if you had an 8th monday and did not take more till friday, then you should still get full effect on friday. So if your tolerance is seemingly building over a time period of weeks then I suggest you find better quality mushrooms. Sounds to me like poor quality control in mushroom production. Also, It does help with depression, it helped mine. It also helped me quite smoking cigarettes. I am almost 6 months nicotine free, I quite cold turkey 1 week after a very powerful 5.5 gram dose.
Well the dose I chose was the within the dose used in the study at John’s Hopkins, where they state that it should be between 3 and 6 grams. I’ve actually never heard of using a low dose. I never took it for more than once a week because I read that you can develop tolerance if you don’t give it at least 5 days between doses. In the Hopkins trial, too low didn’t give people much improvement and too high (> 6gr) gave too many side effects, Do you know of any studies that I can access to about the low dose? Thanks
3 to 6 grams will take you to the other side of the moon. If I want an intense dose I take 3.5-4 grams.
Micro doses are far below that. I take about .5 grams a day and remember to do it every other day.
Good Luck!
Thank you, do you feel any different on just .5 grams every other day? Do you take it for a specific reason like depression and does it work for you? I have a very high tolerance for most drugs, so I’m wondering if I try .5 and it doesn’t do anything then I’ll try 1 gram every other day?
I would start with .5 grams 3 times a week. After a month if you feel like you should bump it up then go ahead.
I have no specific reason other than feeling my absolute best, But I can say I feel more connected to the world around me and overall much happier.
Happy trails!
Thank you
Here are a few studies I have found so far, not all directly about depression but mushrooms in general. The last one is on mood disorders though.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/200/3/238.figures-only
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(14)00275-3/fulltext
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v11/n9/full/nrn2884.html
I have to get some sleep so I don’t have much time to look for more. Hope this will help.
not more than whans a weak.if you want ful efekt
I quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey after a 15 gram dose. It really does work but I haven’t dosed for a couple years and went back to cigarettes and now on the ecig. I think I’d have to dose once a month to be nicotine free to help me remember why I quit bc life is so beautiful.
FYI, Another thing that will help dramatically curb your depression is transcendental meditation. I highly recommend you look into it. I attended the Transcendental Meditation Program, paid a flexible fee for the 4 day intro course and after the first 4 days you pay for they let you back to any TM center in the world to practice for free for the rest of your life. Meditation is excellent for depression, anxiety, add, addiction, and generally gives you a more positive outlook on life. Besides that two other things that will also help with depression is proper diet and exercise.
Meditation should never cost you a penny. TM is bullshit, and a scam.
actually its not. I get plenty for my money and I still use it today to much benefit. You should do more accurate research on the subject.
There are recent studies that indicate it is effective for treating PTSD, depression, and more. feel free to look it up for yourself.
Nice that it works for some and I would venture to say that they weren’t in a very deep depression ie. on the point of committing suicide.
I beg to differ sir. I have been in said “Deep Depression” to depths I don’t really feel comfortable discussing. only reason suicide was not an option for me is, call me a pussy but I honestly could not bring myself to do it. And yes, I came out of it. Largely due to a correct diet and exercise and TM. Im telling you the TM does wonders if you are consistent with it. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR THE CLASS I MENTIONED> Simply look up some good old free info on the world wide web I’m sure you will find plenty of info on how to meditate yourself. I chose to take the class because (for one thing my wife really wanted to do it…) I though it would be fun and the teachers were very experienced and were able to explain everything to me in a way I could easily understand. But all the same info can be found on the web im sure. Not to mention, There are many other forms or methods of meditation out there that I am sure work as well, I am only experienced in TM. And I really enjoy TM so I keep doing it and have no reason to explore otherwise. These tips to not just work for some people. They have potential to work for anyone but You have to want it to help you. If you are going to try TM for 2 weeks and assume that its bullshit, well of course it is. You decided it was bullshit. so to you it is. That does not mean it does not work. That is just basic psychology. Similar to people who deal with depression, Their depression becomes perpetuated because once they get into that mindset, you begin to look for things to go wrong for you. You subconsciously begin to look for problems in your life so that you can feel shitty about it. You don’t realize you are doing it and it becomes a cycle. It is the same way with people that are mostly happy. They get addicted to that thought process and subconsciously look for things around them that will make them more happy or something to reinforce that feeling. If you assume meditation is bullshit without approaching it with an open mind, Then you are going to choose to see it as bullshit. But that does not make it so. It’s all about perception my friend.
I disagree. Possibly meditation can work for very mild depression/anxiety. Some people think feeling a little blue is actually the worst depression. Some people think anxiety is just a little fear, not chronic panic attacks. So, meditation will not help, It also won’t help PTSD C-PTSD or any clinical or chronic depression and anxiety. It can in the moment… Possibly. It might not help at all. Unless part of the diet contains magic mushrooms, 5-meo DMT, DMT or Ayahuasca. But not in the same meal or even the same day! Lol.
In nature, less is more. Psilocybin mushrooms contain natural beta blockers which prevent you from becoming addicted to it, natures defence mechanisim. The more frequently used, the less effect it will have. I personally like to take a whole day in a nice spot and microdose, i.e. I take 3 grams and grind it up, put it into 6 half gram caps, and I take at regular intervals during the day. This allows me to relax my mind and feel great without hallucinating. Then give it 10 days and do it again!
6 is a lethal does for humans usually. Shrooms is more poison than narcautics it makes your brain bleed, this is probably why you’ve come to an immunity dopamines and endorphins, are our happy hormones released in the brain to the body for the feeling of “happy” right?, so things like shrooms basically dump all those dopamine or endorphins at once so when you do this a lot your body doesn’t release those anymore. This is depression. Try a micro amount like a small amount of dust for a week then stop for a week and do this once a week. Pinch of dust tiny unoticable does ween it out, weekly big does is too often and harmfull in general but is prob making it worse. And never drink on shrooms it becomes toxic. Bad way to go.
Alchohal. Drink lots of water. My guess is you like narcautics in general that’s why you’d be here. Do a micro dose just to train your brain to use some endorphins because a higher dose will make it worse you want your brain to do this automatically not manually just off drugs. So ween it down take a week if you feel a differance if replace it with ganja. For the cerebral affect
Not only are spouting total and under propaganda, it seems
like you don’t even have a basic grasp of English!! Why would anyone of sane mind want to take you seriously??? Please, learn to spell at least before going around spouting lies. The derp is strong with you!
As harsh as sharkonwhiskey sounds, I completely agree. Especially, you should always use correct language and spelling. What the hell is the point in saying anything at all if no one can understand you? I take correct spelling as a show of good character. It shows self-respect in the sense that it implies your ideas are important to you and that it is important to you for others to hear them. It shows respect for others that have to read and understand it, and in general bad spelling and short hand are simply fucking lazy. If you need to be reminded of a typo somewhere that is easily missed thats one thing, It happens, we miss things sometimes. But Corey Ian Colangelo, you straight-up butchered that paragraph and we can all tell that you don’t care because there is a handy and easy to use thing called spell check that you could easily use if you did care. Not to mention a dictionary. I know they were tough to navigate in middle-school but we are adults now right? We know how to index. Hell, dictionary.com is like spelling for dummies and it boils it down to a few clicks and in 5 seconds you can know exactly how to spell anything you don’t know, and exactly what it means and know its context. This is basic stuff. High-Schoolers know this. And that is why it makes you look bad. It makes you come off to others as immature, ignorant, and lazy.
my first does whas 50 small eurupean psilusybe.the strongest in the world,what the fuck you ar bablind aubutt
What complete and utter shit you spout. We used to do brews of up to three thousand mushrooms at parties and sometimes more and then drink two or three cups of it. It gets you to the stage where you see different sound as different colours. You really don’t have a clue do you.
Where do you get your info? I’ve taken up to seven grams at one time without having any bad reaction. The study at John’s Hopkins used higher doses than that but they stated that the best dose to get the experience was the equivalent of a minimum of 3 and a high of 6.2 grams. Higher doses also worked but there was more bad trips on it. I’ve never heard of bleeding from the brain as a result. Also where did you get the info on it depleting your dopamine and by the way I’ve had my depression for over two decades and it wasn’t due the use of mushrooms. Please do send me the info if you can find it. Thank you
You could really do with some psilocybin urgently as you sound pretty damn short of brain cells to me, bubba!! Time to grow some more I think…
You are disseminating false information. Check your sources. That is irresponsible.
what muchrums ar you talking abut? red whith white spots? not cillocybe! i tok 400 and had a full dmt experiance,left my body,and am sstll hear
Damn man you seriously need to get your facts straight. Shrooms are harmless essentially. The psilocybin in the mushroom is broke down and turns into psilocin which triggers your brain to release extra seritonin which make you feel good. Extra seritonin make you feel happy, floaty, colorful, etc. I have heard colors and seen sounds on shrooms. It helps with depression not cause it. What do you think your brain releases to make you be happy? As far as dopamine going, it and seritonin work together some what in our brains but on different levels. But taking mushrooms it is just the seritonin levels that are raised. Also not all mushrooms are created equal. You may have a mushroom that weights .1 then you have one that weighs .5…. The bigger one could be less potent than the smaller one. That is why I like to dry them and grind them up and put them in a tea or in melted chocolate.
It is like acid in that way. The more you do the less effective it becomes. Try cutting down to two weeks apart. If you do it on a regular basis within three to seven days apart you have to double the dose to get the same effect as previously.
Ive dosed up to 5 grams of dry cubies at a time but they are on special occasions. You’ll gain a tolerance if used consecutively for a long period of time. Quit for a month and up your dose a little and you’ll have a great trip.
Maybe the mouse was just too “high” to care about the pain.
I have been taking anywhere between .2 to .25 of psilocybin everyday for the last month and I am really pleased with the results. I am more in tune with nature and I am feeling more emotions. Overall, my spirit feels lifted, but in no way do I feel immune to adversity. When I was taking antidepressants, overall I felt better, but at the expense of suppressing difficult emotions and never really dealing with the root of problems. It’s quite the opposite with micro – I feel everything and am much more aware of my feeling defense system that is armed with a great number of distractions. Also, It’s interesting to note that my meditation and yoga practice is stronger than it ever has been since starting a daily microdose.
Where do you find psilocybin?
In a cow pasture growing out of the cow dung. Just make sure you study mushrooms before going out so you know what you’re looking for and make sure the mushrooms you pick are looked over by someone who knows about shrooms. Some species of mushrooms are way too poisonous
Only the green mushroom kills so do not fearmonger.
Look for mushrooms that turn blue when you bruise them. (Pinch). An almost certain sign. Also when picking any ‘shrooms, don’t take them all. Leave some to regrow. Tap the heads and spread their spores over the area they’re growing.
Uhhmm, but only if they look like little tiny umbrellas, i.e. psilocybe. I brought a blue-brusing, sponge-bottom, Boletus edulus-looking shroom, to Paul Stamets and Gary Lincoff @ Telluride once–“Poisonous” said Paul & Gary….i.e. no big, blue Boletes!
Uhm shrooms are more poison to us than narcautics. They’re toxic if taken with alchohal, and if you take them more than once a week you’re liable to depression, through lack of dopamine and endorphins. Js don’t abuse it.
You really do not have a clue what you are on about do you.
For a start they are NOT poisonous when taken with alcohol. I and many others I know have done that loads of times in the past as alcohol actually makes the trip stronger.
If you take them more than once a week to trip on, then you have to keep doubling the dose until they taste so disgusting you can’t do them.
Perhaps people might take one more seriously if one could write properly.
The article explains nothing. The article says psilobicin does something, not the mechanism.
The article says psilosybin blocks or eliminates the fear mechanism causing mice to forget the shock. Idiot.
I just needed to say that I took psilocybin mushrooms Satuday. Today, Monday, my OCD is gone. No joke. I have not felt this normal since elementary. I feel free. I am so thankful for them. No therapist or pharmaceuticals could help with it. Just one good trip has eliminated my rituals. It’s unbelievable. Thank god for such a blessing. I will never underestimate the power of plant medicines. I’m going to change my major in college so I can help support the cause.
How much did you take, what was your dosage?
Trapped in time, and I don’t know what to do
Genius,
“Because they’re afraid that there’s more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they’re afraid to go in, and they don’t want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don’t know. And that makes us a little out of their control.” – Ken Kesy
happy days
When I was in my late teens, I was on a road to self destruction. Anger, alcoholism, depression… I went into a weekend festival with black leather, steel, skulls, and darkness deeply embedded into my psyche. I was, at the time, the most dangerous kind of suicidal… the kind that takes as many with you as you can.
I was introduced to magic mushrooms – not for the first time, but for the first time in a loving, therapeutic environment. One night saved my life, and if there is such a thing, my soul. When fears and insecurities rule your life, your life is almost constant suffering. These little critters changed me. Over the course of the next few years, I re-visited them several times to further shed the toxic parasitic thinking that is so prominent in this society.
Here’s the kicker… I never found myself addicted – in fact they got me free from cocaine. Instantly. That my life was saved by these little fungi is no overstatement, and I for one would like to see more study into the medicinal aspects of these natural little wonders. I would support spending 1% of what we spend on war-making on finding all the benefits of fungi – from food to medicine – for the better of our global species. As many soldiers kill themselves unnecessarily after being immersed in the hell of war, we owe it to them, and to the children of our “enemies”, as well as to ourselves.
Exactly. They don’t want unafraid people. They ask too many questions….. 😐
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q24aGYlRHY8
Well Terence, that was very interesting, but flawed. I believe the US government initiated the ban on hallucinogens because they had the potential to reduce the government’s control, through fear, of the masses.
When they made LSD a controlled one substance, they effectively cut off any financial gain. It take extreme measures to even get access to use the drugs, even for research. So you’re money theory doesn’t hold water.
Sorry
Terence Mckenna implicated to have worked for the CIA.
ingredients? is caffeine an ingredient in coffee?
My daughter has a brain injury from a car wreck— I have read they help the brain reconnect– damage is on speech and motor skills side— kinda like a stroke on one side of body! Anyone know if they help!!!
I had a stroke at the age of ten, I’m thirty seven now. I recently began microdosing psilocybin mushrooms, following the Stamets protocol. I’m also stacking it with lions mane mushrooms. I’m starting to be able to move my toes and rotate my ankle for the first time in twenty seven years.
There is research going on in the US:
http://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=526825
You are choosing your focus and again choosing the negativity bias. Healthcare that is becoming unsupportable due to rising prices of regular medication, due to the people you are referring to, is caused because many of the elderly falling sick, suffered childhoodtrauma and never dealt with that/never integrated that. And then there is the next epidemic Dementia/Alzheimer/Diabetes III, of which patients with trauma have a 4 times higher risk. What i am reading is that psicolybin growths new braincells. Not that long ago we all believed those could never be regrown, Then we learned about Neurogenesis. Sadly that only happens in the Deep Sleep phase and as many traumatised people suffer Insomnia, that is a brainwave state their brains often do not enter or cannot enter. What also happens during sleep is detoxing the brain and when that does not happen you have many double whammies.
Couldn’t this study be used to try to understand the people that perpetuate the “drug war”? Isn’t there an ignorance THERE that is self defeating?
They grow well on cow shit in Texas fields.
Good old shrooms?!? Almost better than real life! I just need to get this said… I unknowingly ate 5g of the wonderful things and then entered the HHH Metrodome for Pink Floyd in quad sound. They have a rainforest track coming from all directions as people filter in and my journey starts… BOOM! Darkness hits, music drops and planets start flying around the audience in full color! OMG Holy shit. I have no clue what really happened to the rest of the show cuz I had to seriously change scenes, quick! I have had no bad times on boomers and I am gonna go to the grave stating that I was with (God) the night of Floyd. I remember bawling my eyes out while laughing with joy! Love ’em too much…
if it’s not a silly question, can one grow these at home ? how would I go about that ?!!
Read McKenna’s book….psilocybin , the magic mushroom growers guide. Stay safe 😉
Stoner comment… Lol. Good 4 u bro.
Awesome blog
used to take them together with raisins in the times of Margaret Thatcher who wanted to ban mushrooms growing in the meadows.
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How much did you take, what was your dosage?
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nice describe
Soon the immorality of denying people information about and access to psilocybin will be laid bare.
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