I am pretty new to mushrooms. What would you call a "high" dose? So far I have tried, 2, 3 and 4g dried. I definitely could feel it physically and became emotionally very sensitive but I didn't feel anything spiritual.

It varies on the individual, probably due to body mass and so on. Even then, it's not like a certain dose will guarantee a certain experience. I'm a ~72kg man and I'd say 3.5g is a normal dose and 4.5g is verging on high. The most I ever had was around 5g.

The two truly profound spiritual experiences I've had were actually 22g "High Hawaiian" magic truffles (not mushrooms, but similar), and around 5g cubensis magic mushrooms, though I did eyeball it so it may have been more or less.

Psilocybin content varies strongly from species to species. More problematically, it can also vary a lot in individual mushrooms in the same batch.

I would say that the best bet at consistency is to grind your whole batch to average the potency, then try a small dose to get a feel of your particular batch before proceeding.

I'm not familiar but would an alcohol solution containing the ground batch, gently heated, then filtered, yield an even distribution of potency?

No need for another solvent; simply making a tea with hot water does the trick. Not boiling hot though, as it'll degrade the active components to some extent. Aim for 70 degrC before adding the ground material.

Alcohol (everclear) is a good long term storage medium for mushrooms. Tea (as suggested by another poster) works alright but loses some potency and doesn't store well.

One thing to be aware of is that you need a decent amount of everclear to perform the extraction, but once you've gotten everything out, you're going to want to reduce the alcohol by evaporating some of it so that you don't need to take several shots to get a good dose.

Also, boiling isn't a problem for mushrooms, psilocybin is heat tolerant to that level. Water, on the other hand, degrades psilocybin fairly quickly.

Generally the basic cubensis type, roughly 3g dried is considered a single dose, others are usually more potent. What I did (I think I've read it on erowid), was to mix dried shrooms with pure fresh lemon juice.

The result is properly disgusting (too sour and shrooms taste horribly and shrooms brought me almost to vomit), BUT - it makes the trips shorter (say 3 hours instead of more exhausting 6) and much more intense.

What OP describes with "really high doses", well, I went beyond with those 3g, not sure how much further. But there are few 'tricks' to make it happen. 1) be alone (so not good for those who are anxious and on first trip), so that nobody interferes with the experience and you can just go deeper and deeper if you want; 2) close your eyes, ideally laying on the couch/bed, having some relaxing soft music as a background (I had some shamanic sounds which were positively adding to the experience I believe). Visual sensory input and managing of the body is too strong for the brain to ignore, it will throttle the trip significantly.

After some time, losing gradually all my senses, losing any mental connection with all parts of the body, I ended up as a mist of atoms, egoless, just watching from distance, swirling in the music that was playing in the background although I didn't hear it directly (weird, I know, hard to describe). Imagine hot steam sauna, if you have light there you can see droplets swirling.

What was also impressive was coming down, since the process of re-discovery of my physical self, be it hand or breathing or eye muscles was more pronounced compared to losing it, one at a time. This part took easily 30-60 minutes if uninterrupted. And at the end the utter sense of peace with all universe. I am not spiritual/religious and this didn't change that, but I understood back then where religions come from and why they tell us more about ourselves rather than god itself (but that's my own conclusion). Profound, 1 in top 3 most intense experiences in life, repeatedly (didn't do it for last 10 years though, kind of took from it what I needed and could I guess).

Mind you, at any time, I could interrupt it and stand up, losing 90% of the current state. Maybe on higher dosages this wouldn't be possible so easily (but they say vitamin C or sugar terminates the trip pretty quickly, not sure never needed it).

Also, having issues, anxiety, going though harder parts of life ain't a good combination with any mind-altering drug, or any drug for that matter.

Try 8+ grams dry plus 250mg of harmala extract. You will commune with the goddess, then realize you are just another facet of her, and your reality is just play in a daydream of the infinite.

Some people take things differently. Some folks are pleasantly couchlocked for an evening at 5g and re-evaluating life at 10g, and some are fine with 30+g and going hunting in the swamps on a full moon.

I'd suggest you try ~12g next; with knowledge it might be a bit too much but some comfort you know what itll be generally from the smaller doses. if thats not what you're after, then maybe steps at 18 and 24g.

Do pay attention to frequency warnings and such commonly cited; too much too often is a waste of good shroom. Also consider extracts, I personally found the larger doses hard on the stomach, even powdered, compressed, and rendered easy to swallow with honey. Vodka is a great solvent and can be evaporated back off.

Agreed with the other commenter - your dosage recommendations are highly specific, but we don't know your context or what you're taking.

I'm in Australia and 5g of dried mushrooms does not leave you pleasantly couchlocked, as you say. On 5g, you will have a massive, epic trip.

I have taken shrooms three times. My biggest dose was 3.5g. This was a transformative experience with ego dissolution and a thorough, extended series of interactions with my sub-consciousness and all of its complexity.

My context was dried, fresh cubensis of varied strains, and some years of enjoying them. Yes I'm talking insane doeses for some people, but that wasn't "high" doses for me; and i've never had "visuals" or many of the other effects that other get from psilocybin.

I think my biggest single does was about the equivalent of 4oz dried; great trip but the hangover was way too long.

It really depends on the species. For most mushrooms I wouldn't go beyond 5g. Suggesting 12 or even 24g to me sounds like suggesting to drink 12 or 24 bottles of wine at the same time (if I think of the type of mushrooms I often took. For truffles maybe that's ok).

Are you talking wet or dry? Those are massive dry doses:

https://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_dose.shtml

I don't really got great experience with mushrooms. Every time I took them, I just... have a hole in memory. I have no idea what I do or did, and suddenly it's 2 hours later and my head hurts. (And it got repeated multiple times when I tried them, so I stopped trying.)

So, it's not a bad experience, but not a great experience either.

LSD got similar feeling to me that you describe. Maybe more colorful and time warping, I don't know.

It's still drug induced state though. You don't see profound reality. You see what the drug is making you see. IMO, better to focus on the reality in front of you rather than something that is effectively a hallucination. Just my opinion though.

> It's still drug induced state though. You don't see profound reality. You see what the drug is making you see. IMO, better to focus on the reality in front of you rather than something that is effectively a hallucination. Just my opinion though.

This last paragraph you wrote demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the mind, chemistry, and reality.

The drug is a mere simple molecule. It does not contain any hallucinations or video recordings or instructions. It's a chemical that tweaks the parameters of your neurons, causing them to fire in patterns different from those they typically fire in. That's why it affects different people very differently: because the experience is created by the brain, not the drug. And although we might all take the same drug, we've all got different brains.

Anything you see/feel/hear/experience on the drug came from your own mind or its sensory input. It did not come from the drug. You may not have had those experiences without the drug, but the drug itself is not the origin of those experiences.

Your final comments about how it's "better" to "focus on reality" rather than a "hallucination" also screams that you are simply jealous of those who claim to have had profound experiences with these drugs. The people in this thread citing profound experiences are largely explaining how the drug actually helped them to better focus on reality. They aren't talking about how they spend day-in-day-out taking these drugs or thinking about them.

We're all hallucinating all the time. Our mind is constantly autonomously filling in the gaps left by our sensory system with "hallucinations". Certain drugs may cause your hallucinations to diverge farther from rational/empirical truth, but to be clear, most people aren't very rational/empirical to begin with.

OK, good for you then.

Psychedelics are some of the most personal substances to exist. Your experience, while completely valid, is not everyone's experience. For me, while I haven't gone as deep as some with mushrooms, I find that I remember quite a bit about my mushroom experiences. The only time I've ever had such a "time hole" was when a broken finger was operated on and I was placed under anesthesia.

It may be a "drug induced state", but the power of that state can be amazing.

Posting with a throwaway because...well... shrooms are still illegal and I'm an upstanding dude in my society! I took em exactly two times, and to me that's enough for one lifetime. It's not like I didn't like it, it's just, well, it doesn't seem necessary now. Not sure if that makes sense. Both times I had pretty much the same kind of trip. Not good or bad, just strange and a huge, permanent perspective shift. I'm not a drug guy so I don't know if how much I took was a lot or not, but it was always in a decent setting with a trusted "babysitter" to prevent me from getting into trouble. That's pretty important when you're going to remove yourself from reality for about 12 hours.

Both trips had four distinct phases. Never tried to put them into words before, but hey tonight I feel creative. First phase was kind of a fun, flexible feeling. A little euphoric. I remember thinking that things like math and physics were tangible objects I could touch and interact with. I could close my eyes and travel to distant planets, then open them and be back on earth. Could still recognize the friends I was with and the house I was in, but understood things were really out of whack. Pretty neat. Wish it would have just stayed that way honestly. Second phase I pretty much detached from reality. The visual and audio hallucinations were most vivid during this time. Felt like I was outside of myself sometimes and other times totally encased inside with no concept of "outside". Trying to do any kind of deliberate interaction with the real world (like picking up a glass or turning on music) was impossible. Third phase was scary because the logical part of me realized that I was totally detached from reality, and that in the actual reality I could be doing anything right now. Running naked in the street. Pissing on myself. Who knows, because I have no way of knowing what was actually going on. Pretty scary to not even be able to trust a single one of your senses and know you can't trust them. Didn't like it. Fourth stage is kind of hard to put to words. All concept of space, time and sensory input was pretty much obliterated. Especially time was totally screwed up. At the time, I had no idea whether I spent 100 milliseconds or 100 years tripping. Time didn't even seem to consistently go in one direction. A lot of things that in real life I was feeling anxious or fearful of, or even happy about, kind of just melted away because my entire sense of self melted away. My real life was like a distant memory, one that I wasn't sure ever even happened. Maybe I was always in this state! I spent most of the night like this, not sleeping (because, what was sleep even?), and finally slowly transitioned from it into reality as morning came and the effects wore off.

Overall, the experiences were not social ha-ha silly high times had with friends, they were deeply introspective and personal, and for the vast majority of the time spent under the influence, I didn't even realize my friends were around.

I think I got everything out of these trips that I needed to, and see no need to go on one again.

I just want to say, I know exactly how you felt. The confusion upon confusion. Is this everything? Forever? Panic. It's ok. A good trip is worth it. It all makes sense in the end. The "perspective shift" of which you speak is the perspective of everything, right?

Same for me - took them twice as a teenager. The first trip is as tangible to me now as a memory of an amazing journey or holiday. The second one was a kind of dud sequel. Never felt the need to return to them, but was glad to have experienced it.

had similar with weed. Problem is, after the effect wore off I was left with some memory of the "existential dread" feeling for month afterward, took a while for the confidence and general sense of life satisfaction to return. Didn't find the experience worth the hit.

Yes. It's really a life-changing experience. One that I think everybody should have once in their life. I'm always amazed by the almost perfectly matching descriptions of such experiences from people living in different parts of the world. There really is something objective and true to what you described. I must say, having taken them multiple times in my life, and my mind being prone to surgically analyze every experience my brain has, I was able to "deconstruct" the experience quite a bit. I can tell you that I never had the god-like one-with-everything experience I had the very first time. I think there is a big factor of novelty to the experience that plays a big role (this is true for most things in life, I would say. When you experience something deeply new, you are naturally excited in addition to what the experience itself has to offer to you.). Another thing I noticed was that I realized I always was feeling physical pleasure during the "highs". Like a constant orgasm sensation that I could feel with all my body. And that is something I think a lot of people experience but don't actually realize, unless they force them to shift their focus from their spiritual breakthroughs onto on what they are physically feeling. I think that plays a big role in enhancing all the various beautiful sensations, thoughts, and almost religious realizations. In such a state of physical pleasure you would judge even a dog that pisses on your leg as something devine. I think there is much less "magic" to the experience once you realize these mechanisms. But, as I said, I still think everybody should take mushrooms at least once in their life (possibly in a nice, controlled setting. You don't want to waste it.). Other times I funneled all their "magic" into creativity, spending all the time of my trip doing my form of art, writing, and I was amazed at some genial things that came out. (Your art form could be different, for example one ex of mine, which is amazing at drawing, drew very cool things when she took mushrooms). I kind of "wasted" the experience in that I did not focus on me, or on enjoying the delight and the weirdness in any way, but I was hyperfocused on my writing, on describing every small bit of sensation that I was experiencing instead of living it and enjoying it. I won't make this post infinitely long. I'll just conclude saying that ultimately I stopped because they weren't giving me much. Like all people taking them, I agree that you get to feeling that you don't need to take them multiple times. They are a drug that basically communicates to you that you don't really need to take them ever again already the first time, given how big and life-changing the first experience is. If you do take them again, it's never on an addiction impulse, like (I guess) opioids would give you or like social media and notifications would give you.