Will you try psilocybin (mushrooms) for your depression?

109
252
Joined
Sep 1, 2002
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220606-psilocybin-how-psychedelic-drugs-might-treat-depression

In recent years, attention has turned to psychedelics such as psilocybin, the active compound in "magic mushrooms". Despite a number of clinical trials showing that psilocybin can rapidly treat depression, including for cancer-related anxiety and depression, little is known about how psilocybin actually works to relieve depression in the brain.
The most compelling evidence of how psilocybin works comes from a double-blind randomised controlled trial (the gold-standard of clinical studies) that compared a group of depressed people taking psilocybin with those taking the existing antidepressant drug escitalopram – something that's never been done before. The trial was further analysed using fMRI brain scans, and the results were compared with other fMRI findings from another recent clinical trial.
According to some depression rating scales, however, psilocybin had the greatest effect on overall mental wellbeing. And a greater proportion of patients treated with psilocybin showed a clinical response compared with those treated with escitalopram (70% versus 48%). More patients in the psilocybin group were also still in remission at six weeks (57% versus 28%). The fact that some patients still do not respond to psilocybin, or relapse after treatment, shows just how difficult it can be to treat depression.

I am so ready to try something new. I tried Lexapro (escitalopram) for a year, but sadly all it did was make me sleepy and kill my sex drive. The studies are ongoing, and legalization/ decriminilization is slow, but we're getting somewhere. I think one of the side effects of Lexapro is suicidal thoughts. I don't think that traditional pills are the path for me. If a fungus can better my depression, I'm down to try LOL. Y'all down?

More info:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210906-what-if-everyone-took-psychedelics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mushrooms

 
If you're dealing w/depression I would absolutely try micro dosing.

I haven't eaten shrooms in years but have a lot of experience with them over a ~15 year period.
 
Will you share your experiences?

And any one else, please share your journey if you're able to.
There's an older thread with some more posts
 
1589280236568-Screenshot-2020-05-12-at-63533-PM.png
 
Funny, I just took some last night, very strange how perception can be altered like that. Ive not tried microdosing but I dont believe I'd like tripping hard if I were suffering from depression, I feel like it wouldnt be good lol, or maybe it would, depends on what you're depressed about and how severe I would think.
 
Most def. I’ll circle back in a couple days and post in depth.

numbah1 numbah1

I always get jumbled when I try to talk about my shrooms experience. Mainly because there is a lot that led up to it which effected my entire trip. So this post will prolly be all over the place so I apologize in advance cuz this is gonna be me just jottin down thoughts.


So my wife really be on some hippie ****. She is a lot more open than I am. Free flowing, peace and happiness, plants all in the crib, weed smoking, yoga, crystals all that jazz. And I support it, whatever makes you happy and gets you to your comfort. I originally dismissed all that **** intitially until I was able to learn more in depth as to why she was interested in that type of stuff. I used to be straight edge initially. I didnt do anything, no drinking no smoking until my friend got killed in 2010. Turned to the bottle pretty excessively but not like a raging drunk, but it was obvious the effects of losing my friend pushed me towards vices.

My wife is the one who started doin shrooms a couple years back. Maybe like 2 years ago. She did them without me so I didnt know until after the fact. I overheard conversations with her friends, she goes on yoga retreats and they all consume drugs to go with the flow and enhance the experience. We are big on space so she does what she does and I do what I do and we dont really interfere. I finally spoke up when I found out that on a trip out of town she was doing shrooms and they were in Arizona and they were in the mountains and they were driving. They had a good experience but I was more concerned with their safety and well being. I never did shrooms yet so Im freakin out like hey you cant be doing **** like that and being out and about. We had a good convo about it and thats when she brought it up to me if I was interested in trying it. .After always overhearing her convos with her friends I cant lie, it piqued my interest. At the time I only had been a drinker and smoked so Im like what the hell let me see what she is experiencing.

To dial back some, My wife is a heavy smoker, heavy smoker. Blunt a day at minimum since we meet in 2009. I never rocked with it until COVID hit. Stuck in the crib, nothin to do, Im like eff it lemme try it out some. So from 2020 up until last month I was a daily smoker as well. My views on weed changed like crazy. The conversations we were having were amazing, the sex was crazy, food tasted amazing, I had totally been wrong about weed. I have never been more wrong about something in my life. So for 2 years straight Im smoking and learning more about myself, and her as well. This is what even got me open to wanting to do shrooms because I was seeing my preconceived notions were incorrect on a lot of things. One thing I learned as well with weed was that for me at least, it allowed me to be more open about things that I compartmentalized. I had an interesting child hood. My mom was abused as a child and that effected her as Mother when it came to raising us. Mix that in with heavy post partum depression and her and my Dad having issues led to some traumatic times for me. Which let me tell you any time you do mood altering drugs just make sure you are in tune with things like that, cuz for me, all those things that I kept locked away, in the furthest aisle on the top shelf in my brain all crept to the surface. I was in therapy from 14-16, I didnt take it seriously but I wish I did at the time cuz it coulda helped me out as an adult.

I promise you this **** will make sense as I continue lol

So smoking weed helped me communicate a lot of things that I had locked away, or at least have the courage to want to talk about them. I had no idea what I was in for with shrooms. But I had to give a little background on the beforehand stuff so u can understand how my trip was. So lets fast forward to this year. I have been battling depression for about 10 months now Id say. Financial issues like crazy. I had the most money Ive ever had 2 years ago, and now I have the least amount of money Ive had lol. I became overweight, I thoroughly dislike my job, My baby boy was diagnosed with Autism, may Dad's cancer came back and his life expectancy went from 10 years to 5 years left. So many things hit me all at once man to where I hit a dark place. I isolated myself from my friends and my mind became my own worst enemies. I didnt feel like I could talk to anyone. That was my mistake there. Make sure you talk to someone. I will be very honest NikeTalk helped me out so much. I deleted all my social media because everyone seemed so happy, even if they are puttin on a front, I couldnt even fake the front, and just seeing that made it even harder. I deleted my socials and I came to NT more. Ive been more open in my posts to complete strangers and it feel amazing to release a lot of my problems and Ive gotten some cool responses in return. The best part is I dont know any of these people so it was easier for me to talk about things compared to the people I knew. And this **** is free too lol. Ive been comin to this site since I was in 7th grade and Im 33 now so this has always been a place of comfort to begin with.


So these are all the things Im dealing with before I ever took the damn shrooms. Im at my lowest point in life at the time so Im like eff it I'll do it with you boo. She gets some shrooms from her yoga ppl. Im the type of person If Im gonna do something I go balls to the wall. She says I'll start u off with just a little Im like naw give me some real ****. So I get a big amount. She boils it in some water and we drink it like tea essentially with the shrooms in them. Once we are done drinking them we both eat them. We are on the couch watchin tv, 10 mins pass nothing. 15 mins pass nothing....Then Ill never forget it, a Voya Financial commercial comes on, all these bright colors, orange screen pops up and its the brightest ****in color Ive ever seen in my life. Vibrant af. we both look at eachother and we like here it goes.

The couch is ****ing breathing, the walls are like moving like breathing as well. The texture of the walls in my house is moving. Im legit in awe. She plays some music, some vibey playlist, jhene aiko type stuff, Im feeling that ****. its 9pm at this moment. In my head Im perfectly fine but everything is just free. Im just walking around the house, Im getting hot. I get naked and Im just walking and touching everything. Everything makes so much sense, we start talking, we are laughing like crazy. We are just expressing everything that we feel about eachother, about our life. Now mind you, we had been smoking the past two years and the weed made us closer than we have ever been, but this shroom **** made us just open up 10 fold. I open up about my depression, our sons autism and how its affecting me. We are crying.....bawling.....Imagine a faucet of tears just pouring out your eyes. I have never cried like that in my life. Its been a hectic year for the both of us but we never vocalized it. SHe opens up to me about how I hurt her early on in our dating years with my infidelity, she lets me have it, and I was able to take that criticism in the purest form man. I needed to hear how I failed her and I heard it raw. We are back laughin now and we are wrapped in this super oversized fleece blankets that feel ****ing amazing, the carpet feels amazing. its 12 am now. The super compartmentalized stuff that I keep in the back of my head from my childhood is making its way to the front. We sit down and I just pour out to her everything, my issues with my Mom, my childhood upbrining everything man...it was the ultimate release....4am we have sex. It was good, probably would have been way better at the height of the high but I was useless at that time, and we are coming down now but it felt great nonetheless.

I fell asleep at 6am she passed out a little after the sex around 5am. I woke up the next day and I felt like I got hit by a bus I was so tired but my demeanor was so different. It felt like all the right plugs in my brain were finally connected. As we were high and talking everything made so much sense and it carried over to when I wasnt high. As a black male I think we tend to deal with depression in a terrible way. Its always "aw youll be aight, just shake it" when that is not the case. THings need to be addressed and vocalized and we need to look at mental health in a better light with a better approach. During my depression I used to say dumb stuff like man starting tomorrow Im just shake all this and be back to normal....never happened, it doesnt work like that lol. One thing I learned while on the shrooms was that depression isnt just something that goes away or gets turned off like a light switch, it requires work from the person as well. Its similar to what you can read in the bible. Faith without works is dead. You can have all the faith in the world but you also have to put in the effort as well on your part. I learned that with my depresssion. I was just wallowing in my sorrow thinking one day it will just end when in reality I have to start putting my best foot forward first.

Im overweight? Now I am running and eating better....Ive lost 50 pounds and I feel great. My Dad is battling cancer and his time is limited on this earth? Ive made it a duty to see him as much as possible and spend as much time with him. My son is autistic? We have enrolled him in ABA therapy and he is making strides and hitting milestones we thought could'nt happen. I hate my job? Ive have had probably 20 interviews and some job offers since then. Am I still depressed? I would say yes, I think its an ongoing issue that never truly goes away once you get hit with it, I just think you learn how to manage it effectively. I know I have to put forth the effort to make sure my mood is the best it can possibly be at all times and that I know when to recognize when that dark cloud is trying to loom over me. It is up to me to redirect my energy and not allow myself to get that far down. Some days are better than others. But the person I am now is a complete different individual from the person I was before and I whole heartedly give my experience with shrooms the credit for this change and being the catalyst.

Will shrooms help you with your depression? I honestly dont know., but I feel it can definitely push you into the right direction to help things start to make sense. I shared a lot about compartmentalized issues I had because I feel if you journey into phsychadelics you have to be aware that those hidden things can get brought to the surface, and if you dont think you are in a good head space to confront them then think twice. Also I had the luxury of having my wife be experienced in them and be able to guide me through my trip. I would strongly suggest anybody thats thinking about doing shrooms to be with some one they truly care about, love, and are comfortable with that can take care of you in the event things may not go as planned or if you just want to speak out your feelings. I think thats best done with someone who truly matters and not just some random person.

All in all I recommend them to anyone that is interested in trying them, just prepeare yourself as best as possible. I would definitely do them again and Im certain I will sometime in the future.
 
Great read waukeganwill waukeganwill . About three months to the day I tried shrooms for the first time and I can honestly say it was a turning point in my life. As a black man where I was from, mushroom talk was something me and my homies knew nothing. I went to college outside the Bay Area and when the white boys tried to get me to do it, I reiterated my stance. They told me Mac Dre was on it and I didn’t care because I wasn’t a Cali cat to begin with. 18 years later, I wish I would have listened to them but at 18 I was still a child finding myself, and didn’t have the life experience which lead me to where I am now and being open minded.

I was raised Baptist and do believe in a God or high power. In my senior year, I took a world religions class and when I studied Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism, I felt that like I was living my live based on their core values and principles, moral than my Christian beliefs. I’ve been more open minded about things so I took the plunge when my friend offered me some shrooms. It was the perfect day, clouds in the sky and a slight breeze. I took them, he put on a drum and bass playlist and 15-20 mins later the world was in 8K. Colors were so vibrant, the clouds were forming all of these beautiful images and the EDM music made sense. I got this euphoric feelings and as I looked around to admire the beautiful earth, I realized that if everyone felt like how I did at that moment, there would be peace on Earth. At the end of my trip, I had this sense of clarity and enlightenment. I called this girl and told her how I did her wrong, and I need to stop blaming her when it was me misdirecting her. I would like to say before the trip I thought life was pretty good, but I wake up now with a sense of purpose and appreciation for those around me. I have become a better son and brother and I’ve been going Beastmode in the gym. I left my job where I was complacent and leveled up big time with a new one. I microdose and that seems to balance me out at times when I’m a little down. I highly recommend it to any and everyone. Be with good people with good energy, be open-minded to the journey, and embrace your your feelings afterwards. There is no words to describe how I felt at the peak, it’s something people will have to experience.
 
numbah1 numbah1

I always get jumbled when I try to talk about my shrooms experience. Mainly because there is a lot that led up to it which effected my entire trip. So this post will prolly be all over the place so I apologize in advance cuz this is gonna be me just jottin down thoughts.


So my wife really be on some hippie ****. She is a lot more open than I am. Free flowing, peace and happiness, plants all in the crib, weed smoking, yoga, crystals all that jazz. And I support it, whatever makes you happy and gets you to your comfort. I originally dismissed all that **** intitially until I was able to learn more in depth as to why she was interested in that type of stuff. I used to be straight edge initially. I didnt do anything, no drinking no smoking until my friend got killed in 2010. Turned to the bottle pretty excessively but not like a raging drunk, but it was obvious the effects of losing my friend pushed me towards vices.

My wife is the one who started doin shrooms a couple years back. Maybe like 2 years ago. She did them without me so I didnt know until after the fact. I overheard conversations with her friends, she goes on yoga retreats and they all consume drugs to go with the flow and enhance the experience. We are big on space so she does what she does and I do what I do and we dont really interfere. I finally spoke up when I found out that on a trip out of town she was doing shrooms and they were in Arizona and they were in the mountains and they were driving. They had a good experience but I was more concerned with their safety and well being. I never did shrooms yet so Im freakin out like hey you cant be doing **** like that and being out and about. We had a good convo about it and thats when she brought it up to me if I was interested in trying it. .After always overhearing her convos with her friends I cant lie, it piqued my interest. At the time I only had been a drinker and smoked so Im like what the hell let me see what she is experiencing.

To dial back some, My wife is a heavy smoker, heavy smoker. Blunt a day at minimum since we meet in 2009. I never rocked with it until COVID hit. Stuck in the crib, nothin to do, Im like eff it lemme try it out some. So from 2020 up until last month I was a daily smoker as well. My views on weed changed like crazy. The conversations we were having were amazing, the sex was crazy, food tasted amazing, I had totally been wrong about weed. I have never been more wrong about something in my life. So for 2 years straight Im smoking and learning more about myself, and her as well. This is what even got me open to wanting to do shrooms because I was seeing my preconceived notions were incorrect on a lot of things. One thing I learned as well with weed was that for me at least, it allowed me to be more open about things that I compartmentalized. I had an interesting child hood. My mom was abused as a child and that effected her as Mother when it came to raising us. Mix that in with heavy post partum depression and her and my Dad having issues led to some traumatic times for me. Which let me tell you any time you do mood altering drugs just make sure you are in tune with things like that, cuz for me, all those things that I kept locked away, in the furthest aisle on the top shelf in my brain all crept to the surface. I was in therapy from 14-16, I didnt take it seriously but I wish I did at the time cuz it coulda helped me out as an adult.

I promise you this **** will make sense as I continue lol

So smoking weed helped me communicate a lot of things that I had locked away, or at least have the courage to want to talk about them. I had no idea what I was in for with shrooms. But I had to give a little background on the beforehand stuff so u can understand how my trip was. So lets fast forward to this year. I have been battling depression for about 10 months now Id say. Financial issues like crazy. I had the most money Ive ever had 2 years ago, and now I have the least amount of money Ive had lol. I became overweight, I thoroughly dislike my job, My baby boy was diagnosed with Autism, may Dad's cancer came back and his life expectancy went from 10 years to 5 years left. So many things hit me all at once man to where I hit a dark place. I isolated myself from my friends and my mind became my own worst enemies. I didnt feel like I could talk to anyone. That was my mistake there. Make sure you talk to someone. I will be very honest NikeTalk helped me out so much. I deleted all my social media because everyone seemed so happy, even if they are puttin on a front, I couldnt even fake the front, and just seeing that made it even harder. I deleted my socials and I came to NT more. Ive been more open in my posts to complete strangers and it feel amazing to release a lot of my problems and Ive gotten some cool responses in return. The best part is I dont know any of these people so it was easier for me to talk about things compared to the people I knew. And this **** is free too lol. Ive been comin to this site since I was in 7th grade and Im 33 now so this has always been a place of comfort to begin with.


So these are all the things Im dealing with before I ever took the damn shrooms. Im at my lowest point in life at the time so Im like eff it I'll do it with you boo. She gets some shrooms from her yoga ppl. Im the type of person If Im gonna do something I go balls to the wall. She says I'll start u off with just a little Im like naw give me some real ****. So I get a big amount. She boils it in some water and we drink it like tea essentially with the shrooms in them. Once we are done drinking them we both eat them. We are on the couch watchin tv, 10 mins pass nothing. 15 mins pass nothing....Then Ill never forget it, a Voya Financial commercial comes on, all these bright colors, orange screen pops up and its the brightest ****in color Ive ever seen in my life. Vibrant af. we both look at eachother and we like here it goes.

The couch is ****ing breathing, the walls are like moving like breathing as well. The texture of the walls in my house is moving. Im legit in awe. She plays some music, some vibey playlist, jhene aiko type stuff, Im feeling that ****. its 9pm at this moment. In my head Im perfectly fine but everything is just free. Im just walking around the house, Im getting hot. I get naked and Im just walking and touching everything. Everything makes so much sense, we start talking, we are laughing like crazy. We are just expressing everything that we feel about eachother, about our life. Now mind you, we had been smoking the past two years and the weed made us closer than we have ever been, but this shroom **** made us just open up 10 fold. I open up about my depression, our sons autism and how its affecting me. We are crying.....bawling.....Imagine a faucet of tears just pouring out your eyes. I have never cried like that in my life. Its been a hectic year for the both of us but we never vocalized it. SHe opens up to me about how I hurt her early on in our dating years with my infidelity, she lets me have it, and I was able to take that criticism in the purest form man. I needed to hear how I failed her and I heard it raw. We are back laughin now and we are wrapped in this super oversized fleece blankets that feel ****ing amazing, the carpet feels amazing. its 12 am now. The super compartmentalized stuff that I keep in the back of my head from my childhood is making its way to the front. We sit down and I just pour out to her everything, my issues with my Mom, my childhood upbrining everything man...it was the ultimate release....4am we have sex. It was good, probably would have been way better at the height of the high but I was useless at that time, and we are coming down now but it felt great nonetheless.

I fell asleep at 6am she passed out a little after the sex around 5am. I woke up the next day and I felt like I got hit by a bus I was so tired but my demeanor was so different. It felt like all the right plugs in my brain were finally connected. As we were high and talking everything made so much sense and it carried over to when I wasnt high. As a black male I think we tend to deal with depression in a terrible way. Its always "aw youll be aight, just shake it" when that is not the case. THings need to be addressed and vocalized and we need to look at mental health in a better light with a better approach. During my depression I used to say dumb stuff like man starting tomorrow Im just shake all this and be back to normal....never happened, it doesnt work like that lol. One thing I learned while on the shrooms was that depression isnt just something that goes away or gets turned off like a light switch, it requires work from the person as well. Its similar to what you can read in the bible. Faith without works is dead. You can have all the faith in the world but you also have to put in the effort as well on your part. I learned that with my depresssion. I was just wallowing in my sorrow thinking one day it will just end when in reality I have to start putting my best foot forward first.

Im overweight? Now I am running and eating better....Ive lost 50 pounds and I feel great. My Dad is battling cancer and his time is limited on this earth? Ive made it a duty to see him as much as possible and spend as much time with him. My son is autistic? We have enrolled him in ABA therapy and he is making strides and hitting milestones we thought could'nt happen. I hate my job? Ive have had probably 20 interviews and some job offers since then. Am I still depressed? I would say yes, I think its an ongoing issue that never truly goes away once you get hit with it, I just think you learn how to manage it effectively. I know I have to put forth the effort to make sure my mood is the best it can possibly be at all times and that I know when to recognize when that dark cloud is trying to loom over me. It is up to me to redirect my energy and not allow myself to get that far down. Some days are better than others. But the person I am now is a complete different individual from the person I was before and I whole heartedly give my experience with shrooms the credit for this change and being the catalyst.

Will shrooms help you with your depression? I honestly dont know., but I feel it can definitely push you into the right direction to help things start to make sense. I shared a lot about compartmentalized issues I had because I feel if you journey into phsychadelics you have to be aware that those hidden things can get brought to the surface, and if you dont think you are in a good head space to confront them then think twice. Also I had the luxury of having my wife be experienced in them and be able to guide me through my trip. I would strongly suggest anybody thats thinking about doing shrooms to be with some one they truly care about, love, and are comfortable with that can take care of you in the event things may not go as planned or if you just want to speak out your feelings. I think thats best done with someone who truly matters and not just some random person.

All in all I recommend them to anyone that is interested in trying them, just prepeare yourself as best as possible. I would definitely do them again and Im certain I will sometime in the future.
This reads very similarly to my last trip. That sense of inner peace and clarity afterwards is unmatched.

I was always so apprehensive to do shrooms because I was afraid I'd have a bad experience and have it leave me in a bad place for weeks/months after, but it was the exact opposite.
 
I did and it helps a lot.

I haven't tried daily micro dosing every day, I take SSRIs as my day to day help for depression. But like ten times a year or so I take mushrooms and my mind, which normally never shuts up and churns 100 mph and throws horrible thoughts and worse cases and what-ifs around inside my head, turns into a kaleidoscope of understanding, connections (between people and concepts), possibilities, good outcomes, and new ways of looking at problems. There's also, of course, euphoria disassociation and that's why it's not practical for daily life where you need to be lucid and be able to focus on solving concrete problems, drive a car, take care of children, and what not. But for several days after my trip, there's a window of time where I can function and am sober but there's a residue of a genuinely expanded mind and optimism and empathy that all came from the trip.

I'd recommend that people try it out.
 
Started buying cigarettes when I was 24 - not necessarily for myself, most of my co-workers at the time were smokers. Every now and then I'd try one to feel the magical "relaxation" and "nerve calming" effect to no avail.

Few years later Vaping is now becoming a thing, I try it and FINALLY I get the buzz but it's way to overpowering. I stop my experimentation for a few years until 2016 or so when CVS stops selling tobacco products and replaces them with gums and pouches where the nicotine is isolated.

With the gum you can chew it off in halves or thirds and control the dosage. With the pouches you can hold it in your mouth for long periods and slowly get the nicotine rather than all at once like cigarettes.

I generally only use one per day, but even during the periods I ramp it up, it costs less than a dollar a day. The benefits include being able to work faster, sharper vision/hearing, strike up conversations with new people more easily. The negative studies you tend to see about nicotine are actually correlated to smoking, not actually nicotine itself. Bear in mind the average smoker is OD'ing hard - they'll smoke a whole pack of 20 in one day. When you reach that point that's when you start becoming short tempered and highly irritable (not to mention BROKE). 5-7 cigarettes a day seems to be the sweet spot, anything more and your clothes/car start reeking etcetera.
 
I would if I felt like I needed them for sure.

Done them for fun, nothing but good times.

My old Roomate battles depression also addiction to coke real bad. He’s been California sober for damn near a decade now but still fighting depression. He says it works for him for what it’s worth. Since then he’s been able to hold a job and long term relationship which he’s never been able to do.

He’s been on a ton of meds and just does the micro dosing now.

If you do shrooms just keep it chill. You can always add more but you can’t take it away. I ate a pound of shrooms one summer but never more than 4 grams at a time. Start with something super small until you get used to them.
 
Last edited:
Never messed with psychedelics but I've been high out of my mind before and it definitely gave me a new perspective on life and allowed my to explore parts of my mind/psyche that l never knew existed. I'm curious about shrooms and kinda curious about dmt. I swear I'm just afraid of getting "stuck" in another realm... But then again, what am l doing in this realm that's so great that l need/want to stay... Just complacency. Probably my problem altogether.
 
Netflix has a show called The Mind Explained and an episode about psychs, Emma Stone narrates and has a really good metaphor for what doing psychs is like.

Compares it to your mind being a hill/sheet of snow per say, and your thoughts are “sled tracks” that have gone down this hill and left their imprints. Doing psychs is like the “fresh snow” coming and covering the old tracks and giving you new perspective.
 
Back
Top Bottom