What are the pros and cons of magic mushrooms?

[grantsforcollege]

Magic mushrooms are known to be good for many health related reasons, but can someone explain me it pros and cons?

 

[consumer]

Pros - they are free. They are awesome.
Cons - none

 

[grantsforcollege]

if used in low dosage, can it helps in treating depression or anxiety?

 

[consumer]

if used in low dosage, can it helps in treating depression or anxiety?

So the studies seem to say. I dont know. I am not a doctor. I just love shrooms.

 

[yepyepwoah]

Pros - they are free. They are awesome.
Cons - none

Basically word for word what I came to post.

I remember the thrill of finding my first mushrooms in a field and eating them at 4am before I even drove home.

 

[yepyepwoah]

if used in low dosage, can it helps in treating depression or anxiety?

What experience do you have with psychedelics/drugs?

After about 13 years of trying everything under the sun, reading all the books I can on depression/anxiety, and a few shrinks, I can personally say ots not a clear "yes/no" answer.

A hard "maybe" for sure though.

 

[Solipsis]

I guess very little downsides, but for completeness' sake I guess they can be separated in categories where some of the "risk" is likely not to even be significant or realistic at very low supplemental doses meant for e.g. cluster headache prevention. On the other hand acute risk can be very different from use with chronic administration.
- Unless I am mistaken, occasionally mushrooms can produce headaches rather than cure them?
- Orthostatic hypotension (seems unlikely at low supplemental doses)
- Tentative: 5HT2B agonism not being healthy - unfortunately psilocybin seems relatively selective not for the psychedelic 5HT2A but the 2B, which is implicated in cardiac fibrosis but only with chronic use (so supplementing). One of the worst selectivities of most psychedelics apparently. But it is extremely hard to say how to interpret what safe levels are for daily use.
- At fully psychedelic doses of course there are risks involved simply for being a psychedelic. Many here will call the risks low and fair, and it helps to screen yourself for predisposition to mental issues etc. Regarding this: arguably psychedelics would just be a trigger for unstable people, and it could just as well be something different to tip a person over the edge... but when it does go wrong it can have a huge impact on your life. I have known several people who found psychedelics revealing but also got in way over their head with the awareness and insights, making life more complicated for years. I guess this is more like symptoms of personal crisis as a whole, I would not blame psychedelics for just fucking a person up out of the blue... but some mental processes catalyzed can be harmful, as a brain in overdrive can run equally hard in reverse as in forward mode.

At psychedelic doses, mushrooms / psilocybin has been successfully used for outlook in terminal patients by Johns Hopkins I believe? And relief from depression can be a psychological effect from the experience that may not have much to do with direct pharmacological action... so it is questionable whether low dose supplements can help, if they don't produce a trip. Don't know of the mechanism by which it would directly relieve anxiety or depression although I guess it is possible. If anxiety can be relieved even at low doses, by inducing a more meditative state of mind, anti-depressant action may be an indirect result of that?

I thoroughly respect shrooms, and they used to be my main psychedelic when I had little access to and experience with other ones... but honestly they give me the worst mindfuck-y confusing intoxication and emotional rollercoaster of any psychedelic, so for me personally it has huge downsides and I lost almost complete interest in them and would much rather choose 4-HO-MET... However some people have what I get with LSD instead of mushrooms, so completely the reverse... just like some people react well to Ritalin for ADHD and not Dexamph while for others its exactly the reverse.

I hold psychedelics in high regard, but as for benefits or downsides of a psychedelic, it really depends on which one and how you would use it exactly, and what for. It would be much too simple to say that they are just ideal.

 

[psykedenlitenment]

My first trip was mushrooms and it was beautiful to the point it brought me to tears. Tears of joy and beauty and god or Samadhi, not sure, but purely blissful. Time unfolded itself and everything was umbrella'd or spider webbed together and I could comprehend it all, without being able to articulate verbally anything about it, save revelling about, naturally, 'the timeline'.

Another time, I wandered dark streets around Halloween in my up up upstate ny music college (hint: you can make origami birds of the same name) in a light rain singing 'people are strange'

Recently, however, it seems my mushroom trips have taken on a more serious colour. They inevitably seem to circle around to death, dying, the end. Not in a terrifying fashion, but more so an inquisitive manner. It IS a bit uncomfortable, but that subject matter should be. It's been a year, maybe longer since I last eated them. However, upon revisiting past trips involving 4-@-dmt, it may be that the -dmt part is having an effect (affect?? No matter how many times I look this up, I can't remember the difference....) that evokes this serious/almost-somber thought of train. It's somewhat of a grounding or re-centering feeling, if not a little difficult to integrate.

One thing I DO much enjoy is the music and very strange timbre of mental symphonies that flow. I've never been able to capture them, except one, which is just a really simple descending line, but I digest. I feel as though something beautiful could spill out at a moment's notice, but they never exit my cranium.

Overall, they're excellent, serious, heavy, fun, the whole gamut. The only con I can think of that really don't got no redemption to it is the possibility of gut troubles. 1/10 times uneasy belly, 1/15 actually resulting in diarrhea or something.

Hope it helps and go in expecting nothing and you'll get everything

 

[Streetcow]

Pros - they are free. They are awesome.
Cons - none

I second this

while there are some cons like solipsis said they are rare and usually not crippling

also don't believe the bullshit that says psychs can create mental illness they enhance illness you already had they cannot create

kinda like how you need a MAOI inhibitor for dmt to be active orally the dmt is your metaphorical illness and the psychs are the MAOI inhibitor

thats my take on it the only real drugs that cause actual loads of harm are usually the pretty sketchy ones like PCP and even then it can be used properly

I say responsible use is key and then you don't have anything to worry about from your drug habit

-Streetcow