this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Indiana
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Micro dosing and can't feel effects, or higher levels with side affects, good/fun or bad?
The entire spectrum of use cases, actually. I'll use it for mental balance, deep meditation and at parties to help me be social since booze is no longer a thing for me.
My "micro-dose" is about 1g every couple of days, so I'll feel and see it a little. It has nearly the same effect as taking antidepressants daily. (I did a gradual cut-over from antidepressants to mushrooms. Disclaimer: That is risky as fuck, but it worked for me.)
I'll use it for deep meditation sessions that last several hours. That is my high-dose from between 3.5-5g depending on the strain of mushroom and what my goals are. Anything more than 5g, not only will it be super intense, I won't be able to see anything. (My visual cortex simply can't interpret anything for a few hours. I call it "my geometric prison".)
For parties with friends it'll be ~3g to start, but for a long night, I'll double down every few hours. (It's not as intense as it sounds) I can actually do higher doses because I am around people and not stuck inside my own head.
The come-up is always the most difficult for me, regardless of the dose. My trips put me in a different "realm" that feels like I am slightly out of phase with reality. (It's like the "mirror realm" from Dr. Strange, actually.) The come-up can be rough for a lot of people, from what I understand.
With bigger doses come bigger risks. I had a heavy dose catch me off guard once and it set the stage for a bad trip. I was literally startled by it which triggered my anxiety. That triggered fear, which led to more anxiety, etc. I wasn't freaking out externally, but my mind was going crazy. It sucked.
What helped me a ton after that was to always keep a stopwatch running. Not only does it help negate time dilation, it gives me a focal point in reality. I also take more time now to get in a healthy mindset and ensure that my setting is healthy. Set and setting is paramount.
For the most part, heavy doses are rare for me now. It's not that I can't handle it, it's just that I don't need it.
Being in that state allows me to sort through extremely complicated issues and it is extremely draining. After a few long trips through this universe, and likely several others, I found some very deep, and very profound resolve.
Other than some interesting and sometimes very unusual mental experiences, no major side effects. I have a gut of steel, so shrooms don't bother me like they can for others. My stomach might gurgle a little, depending on the strain. Early in my adventures, I would have to block off the entire next day to sleep.
Oh, shrooms cause mental activity to skyrocket so your brain will be sucking down every bit of sugar it can get. For longer trips, I'll keep a glass of sugar-water handy to to sip on or I'll begin to get light headed after a couple of hours. (I am tempted to get some tubes of glucose gels that diabetics use for emergencies...)
As a safety measure, I am going to keep a couple tabs of benzodiazepines in the house as "trip killers". Bad trips suck and some people simply do not have the capacity to just ride it out. An emergency "out" is a good tool to have.
Edit: Major disclaimer: The experience for > 5g is not to be taken lightly. At around 5g or so, you are getting into "breakthrough" territory. Reality, as you know it, will be completely disolved. As mentioned earlier, you visual cortex basically says "fuck this noise" and checks out. Your bodies senses will be completely jumbled: You will hear colors and see smells, as an example. Even if you could see anything, closing your eyes won't stop the flood of geometric patterns and colors. Your sense of "self" will be long gone and you may feel connected to everything around you.
It is complete, and absolute, ego destruction. (Or ego dissolution, whichever term you like.) It took me months of practice taking stronger and stronger doses to be able to handle a breakthrough.
It's highly advised that you have a trip-sitter that is experienced and knows what you are going through. A bad trip at that level can be extremely serious.
This isn't as much a disclaimer. This is a serious warning. Do not fuck around and find out the hard way.
Thanks for thorough and personal experiences.
A buddy of mine who's struggling and has for most of his life, has had a few very bad recent years. He's been on everything ever, they're wrecking his body, and he can't tolerate meds much anymore. We're holding hope this might be a possibility one day.
I like the model of studies I've seen where it's supervised. Like you said, taking a big boy dose to me isn't something I would want to play around with.
Did you ever do the form of micro dose described as people not even aware or undetectable affects? Like you could safely drive or go to work? Or does this always mean you'll need a setup a time or block for use, with recovery or cool down time before doing something else?
I'm hoping to get rid of my own pills too.
I have tried just about every method and dosage level of taking shrooms, except for boofing.
Everyone is different too. I know a person that doesn't feel anything, even after 3g. Her brain simply doesn't process psychedelics.
To replace antidepressants is tricky and you need to be hyper-selfaware. You need to be able to distinguish between "real" emotions and ones that are driven by your natural imbalances. (For example, if your blood sugar is low and it makes you short-tempered, you need to be able to step back from that emotion. It's not "real", but driven by your bodies needs.)
The point: You need to recognize what is happening in your own brain and what is driving your feelings and emotions. That is a healthy practice, with or without drugs, TBH.
With that said, everyone should "feel" a micro-dose. There won't be massive visuals or anything, but subtle changes in your own behavior. Even if it's the placebo effect, does it really matter? Does it help? Great!
Most everyone can function on a micro-dose. Colors may get a little brighter and everything has a cleaner tone to it. Some people get a mild body-high that they say is similar to alcohol, but without being mentally impaired. Self-awareness can increase and even vision may improve slightly. (The better vision part for me is cool as hell. I don't need my glasses as much.) I can go to work and do my chores. My tech work actually becomes easier.
Every dosage level will follow a similar pattern. Think of it like this: You will have a slow climb to the peak of mountain where the experience is at its max, but when you start the trip down, you will have a series of smaller and smaller foothills to go up and over on your way back. Once you are over that initial peak, you are good to do just about anything normally. (For a micro-dose, it's more like stepping over pebbles instead of a mountain, but it's the same pattern.)
I don't worry about blocking time for a micro-dose. For anything over 1g, for me, I'll give myself at least a 2-3 hour buffer after I dose. That is on the safe side as I have grown some super-potent mushrooms before. Even after a big dose, the timeframe is just a little longer. After about 6-8 hours, I'll be back to near 100%. (The actual trip only takes me 2-3 hours, but I'll have mild visuals that slowly fade.)
Proper micro-dosing: The most reliable way to micro-dose is to get a batch of shrooms of the same type and from the exact same harvest and grind them all into a fine powder. Psilocybin content varies from mushroom to mushroom so making an evenly distributed powder will give you a reliable way to experiment with dosages. You want a consistent mixture. (If you have ever heard that a cap is stronger than a stem, that is 100% bullshit. That's not how mushrooms work.)
(I am going to contradict my own advice.) My brain seems to be built for psychedelics. Dose consistency doesn't matter to me in the slightest so I keep my measurements to the gram. If I need more, I'll eat another one. If it hits me harder than expected, whatever. The after effect of just 1-1.5g lasts a few days for me. (Like I said, it's rumored to be very potent SSRI, and I can believe it.)
Go slow and experiment! Also, have fun with it. You want to keep reinforcing a positive experiences, especially when tripping. (You want to take full advatage of the neuroplasticity, after all.)
I can't stress enough that even though my experiences are similar to many out there, you have to find your own limits and how your body behaves. It can be wildly different from person to person and trip to trip.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention tolerance. A tolerance to psychedelics is formed wicked-fast. Once those specific serotonin receptors get saturated, it takes a few days for them to "recover". Remember how I said I'll start a party at ~2g and then double-down every couple of hours? That is why. It's also a tie-in to why they can function as an SSRI for days after, btw.
There are risks when taking psychedelics in combination with antidepressants. This warning typically only applies to DMT and antidepressants, but it really applies to any kind of drug, psychedelic or not, that tampers with your serotonin levels. Serotonin syndrome is a thing and it's not predictable.
Read this a few times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_syndrome
Shrooms are being marketed as a cure-all, but not as bad a weed was. It will only work, for what it works for, for you.
Dude, I'm saving all these posts for both of us. Thank you for the details. I hope your journey keeping being positive.
Rock on. I have spent a metric fuck ton of time studying, reading papers and sorting through a ton of bullshit. The whole field of psychedelics and why psychedelics do what they do is fascinating to me.
Still, I am not a doctor. I am just some dude on the internet that is just super excited about this stuff. My experiences are my own, etc, etc.
There is one person that quantified a ton of subjective experiences into something tangible. She did a good job of summarizing the psychedelic experience into 7 different levels here. https://youtu.be/UQRfTD6AXPs?si=nHtueKnFmkm61Vla
(She works for a decently funded research company now as well: https://www.mindstate.design/ They seem to be legit, so I am curious about what they release in the near future.)