Why does LSD often get more praise, recognition, and notoriety than psilocybin?

[Penthos]

LSD is a bit easier going than shrooms. I find set and setting play an extremely important role in a good shroom trip but I can take LSD almost anywhere. I will say this, though. When an LSD trip turns on someone completely, it's pretty terrifying. I've yet to see anyone have this LEVEL of a horrible trip on mushrooms. Usually mushroom bad trips are panic and fear from what you're seeing/feeling. LSD can up and fuck your entire being for 6 hours. Not knowing where you are, thought loops, psychosis, and then not remembering any of it the next day.

 

[psood0nym]

In addition to what's been mentioned or alluded to -- like old heads naturally remembering the past through rose-tinted glasses --I think LSD gets a lot of praise due to two under appreciated factors: expectancy bias and its linear dose response. As others have noted, it has a historical mystique, and that, combined with relative exclusivity in terms of availability (esp. since the big U.S. bust years ago) primes users to expect greatness, which is then self-fulfilled. Any chump with a credit card can buy "dirty" "RC" chems with nerdy alphabet soup names online or let some fungus sprout on cow shit, but you have to have social panache to charm your way to Lady Lucy. You have to be hungry for it, and hunger is the best spice.

The drug culture is also rife with anecdotes of "dirty" and "clean" LSD, including stories from those who have made that judgment using the exact same LSD laid on different blotter and are simply unaware of differences in unconscious factors and context that are the real culprits behind their different experiences. This fact gives rise to a sociological trend where bad experiences are attributed to impure LSD and good experiences to pure. The result is conversations along the lines of this: "You had a phenomenal, life-changing, psychedelic experience with LSD? Well that must have been cause you got a hold of REAL LSD. I wish I could get the real deal, I'm always gettin dirty shit from dealers who taint it with their sketchy auras and it makes me achy and paranoid, or worse, I get n-bombed, I know it."

All of this then feeds in to what users expect will happen when they take "the one and only true LSD" and what they add to its reputation in conversations later. Also, unlike tryptamines and phenethylamines, LSD has a relatively linear dose response curve. This makes it more predictable, which in turn makes it easier to achieve a desired intensity and a desired experience. If you can count blotters you've used before you have a good idea of what intensity your getting, there's no eyeballing powders of different molecular weights going on in the culture or dealing with different strains whose potency varies by habitat, growing media, and season. Don't get me wrong. The LSD experience has inherent merits, too. It's a classic full-spectrum psychedelic. It's just that I'm pretty sure non-intrinsic factors are the biggest reasons the experience of it is culturally regarded as superior to a handful of other worthy contenders.

 

[Penthos]

In addition to what's been mentioned or alluded to -- like old heads naturally remembering the past through rose-tinted glasses --I think LSD gets a lot of praise due to two under appreciated factors: expectancy bias and its linear dose response. As others have noted, it has a historical mystique, and that, combined with relative exclusivity in terms of availability (esp. since the big U.S. bust years ago) primes users to expect greatness, which is then self-fulfilled. Any chump with a credit card can buy "dirty" "RC" chems with nerdy alphabet soup names online or let some fungus sprout on cow shit, but you have to have social panache to charm your way to Lady Lucy. You have to be hungry for it, and hunger is the best spice.

The drug culture is also rife with anecdotes of "dirty" and "clean" LSD, including stories from those who have made that judgment using the exact same LSD laid on different blotter and are simply unaware of differences in unconscious factors and context that are the real culprits behind their different experiences. This fact gives rise to a sociological trend where bad experiences are attributed to impure LSD and good experiences to pure. The result is conversations along the lines of this: "You had a phenomenal, life-changing, psychedelic experience with LSD? Well that must have been cause you got a hold of REAL LSD. I wish I could get the real deal, I'm always gettin dirty shit from dealers who taint it with their sketchy auras and it makes me achy and paranoid, or worse, I get n-bombed, I know it."

All of this then feeds in to what users expect will happen when they take "the one and only true LSD" and what they add to its reputation in conversations later. Also, unlike tryptamines and phenethylamines, LSD has a relatively linear dose response curve. This makes it more predictable, which in turn makes it easier to achieve a desired intensity and a desired experience. If you can count blotters you've used before you have a good idea of what intensity your getting, there's no eyeballing powders of different molecular weights going on in the culture or dealing with different strains whose potency varies by habitat, growing media, and season. Don't get me wrong. The LSD experience has inherent merits, too. It's a classic full-spectrum psychedelic. It's just that I'm pretty sure non-intrinsic factors are the biggest reasons the experience of it is culturally regarded as superior to a handful of other worthy contenders.

This post. This one.

 

[Ismene]

Even if you can't get mushrooms you can grow your own, you can't make your own LSD. There are very few places where LSD is easy to get and mushrooms difficult.

I just like LSD better myself. There used to be a good mushroom urban legends, that they are poisonous and the tripping is your body fighting the poison. Or the police one that all mushrooms on the street are store bought with LSD on them.

Yeah you've been realisitically been able to grow your own for maybe 5-10 years but all the legends about LSD started 40 years ago so they've got a head start.

I love LSD but I don't like how long it lasts post-peak. You're awake jittery and unable to sleep for about 15 hours after the trip has ended. With mushrooms you come down within an hour or two and can get some sleep.

 

[Ismene]

So how exactly does a quantitative difference become this qualitive difference?

I didn't think we were talking about a qualitative difference - I thought it was just about why LSD has more notoriety.

 

[ChWhLoHo]

Mushrooms = My Love

Mushrooms: The Guys generally eat a large amount, 1/2-2 Ounces dried, depending on the strain and potency. At these doses they can spend six hours lost in my home town, which is only two miles across. They retain most of their memory of these times, though distorted, and generally function well enough to talk to popo without getting frisked, arrested, or shot (Of Course I'm a good child and would never do anything against the laws of our great land). The hallucinations they report range from changing colors, empowered images, to dragons trying to eat them. Generally they move in pairs at minimum, several of us are very good at maintaining good trips for everyone around them. We become very social, and generally feel linked at a deeper level, find ourselves more open and tend to communicate and talk very very large amounts. They operate under strict rules during these times, such as no sex, to help prevent irreversible fuck ups. The seven of us live together, so we end up doing everything together.

Their come downs don't look to harsh, usually it involves being a bit tired for an hour or two, then either being very very refreshed and alive or sleeping. As for sickness, only one of the number suffers from sickness during the whole time, and he usually is only sick once. The rest do have to watch out for the emotional "Tank" that can make these trips bad, but with the group we rarely lose to these. Once done with a night of tripping, they are ready to go to work in the morning (We all work at the same factory, our shifts start at seven). We have never had anyone too sick or tired the next day not to go to work, generally they feel refreshed and re-born.

LSD= Forbidden Substance in our Home. The trips I have observed caused by LSD within our family group are generally only good for one or two people, and often end up causing problems. First, the cost in our area is substantially higher, and generally the quality is lower. The people who have this in our area are the kind of people we do not associate with (Don't care what you do, just that you work and keep shit together and nice). Sadly, the same people with the LSD are usually the ones with much harsher more dangerous pastimes that the boys avoid. The trips are either far-underwhelming, or much much to strong. Unlike Mushrooms, eating or drinking OJ does not seem to soften LSD trips (Our Experience). Also, with our work schedule the duration and hangover is usually unacceptable. We work 12 Hour Shifts 4-6 days a week and can get surprise overtime just about any day except our holy days. Also with the LSD we noted problems with motivation in the days after the trip, I don't know if this was just lazy surfacing, or drug interaction. Also, our company tests for LSD, where as they do not for Mushrooms.

Most of the Mushrooms grow wild around here, and the local college has a strong fungi research department, making acquirement easy for the kids.

 

[suture]

I'd say:

1) Because it's called 'Acid', I think if it was called 'Sunshine' or something similar then people wouldn't get so freaked about it but the fact it's 'ACID' makes it sound bad right away. Like it's gonna burn your mind or something. This is probably the psychological aspect that can ruin some people's trip.

2) Natural vs Chemical. I think people are far less scared of doing themselves damage on a natural plant than on something somebody made in a lab.

 

[electrodevo]

The LSD experience has inherent merits, too. It's a classic full-spectrum psychedelic. It's just that I'm pretty sure non-intrinsic factors are the biggest reasons the experience of it is culturally regarded as superior to a handful of other worthy contenders.

Agreed... a lot of LSD's mythos in my opinion is because it was *the* first major chemical hallucinogen, and indeed hallucinogen overall in modern Western culture, to gain widespread usage, period.

Still, though, it does seem like LSD's profile is one of the better ones out there of the synthetics. I personally do not agree, I find LSD very "cold" and too prone to useless thought loops (for my body). But I know I'm in the minority. A lot of people really do like the ergotamines and even after experiencing the others still want to return there. Even without the mythos and street level tales, a fair bit of people seem to wax on about AL-LAD for instance.

Shrooms do have an unpredictable dose profile, just because nature is unpredictable like that. (4-ACO-DMT and other similar ones are different than shrooms, but I like the fact that you can get a consistent dose profile with that. I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer the shroom and related direction.)

 

[ronthetiger]

Some people have touched on this, but I'll reiterate.

In my experience I find LSD to be a lot more recreational than mushrooms. In my experience I find that a lot more people enjoy LSD than mushrooms simply due to the fact that LSD almost always gives euphoria and provides less of an in-your-face ego dissolution. I've found that a lot of my friends who aren't in the drug scene and don't enjoy spirituality or exploring their inner consciousness often times still enjoy LSD but regard mushrooms as too rough and serious.

For me, I enjoy the serious aspect to mushrooms. They feel more like a tool than a drug, and I only use them when I am searching for some sort of answer or wishing to touch base with some sort of spiritual essence. However, I use LSD when I go to parties and regard them almost as a 'psychedelic' amphetamine, in that LSD makes me open up, empathetic, focused, and wired, and I find that a lot of people feel similarly.

I guess, in my opinion, LSD has a more popular standing than mushrooms because it's a little less serious and not as dark or forceful.

 

[Help?!?!]

You have to be hungry for it, and hunger is the best spice.

Ha, just from my own view, I was able to see this. It was almost like darwinism to me, although that may sound harsh. At my high school it could be like watching it from a viewing glass. Those kids who just wanted to try it to see "funny/pretty" colors would always end up getting it from the lower middle class nothing's who wouldn't think twice of passing of fake LSD. Then those kids would spread stupid rumors about how shit LSD was, and the foolish amongst those crowds would believe them. Then the kids who were a bit hungrier got the mushrooms, but the ones who were the most starved always seemed to get the actual LSD and actual work was involved. No simple "Hey....you got LSD?" and no "Yeaahhhh sure here take this 255ug blotter with no perforations...!". A pretty grand way to say it psood, nice job as always!

 

[my3rdeye]

Mushrooms = My Love
Unlike Mushrooms, eating or drinking OJ does not seem to soften LSD trips (Our Experience).

Also, our company tests for LSD, where as they do not for Mushrooms.

.

OJ is just a placebo, it has no effect at all on your trip either negative or positive. Benzos will soften your trip.
They might tell you they test for LSD at your job but I doubt it.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_testing.shtml

 

[Solipsis]

That maybe so but higher availability doesn't obviously or self-evidently imply this praise recogntition or notoriety so it doesn't really answer or explain anything is what I tried to say. So I was wondering about that explanation.
The PF Tek was invented in 1991 so that is 22 years, but you are still right that is shorter than 40 years, Ismene.

(Oh by the way I too found Panaeolus Cyanescens to be much more similar to LSD than Psilocybe Cubensis - nobody ever told me it might so if that is a coincidence I find it interesting, that I find it anyway)

Mission780: that I meant taking cannabis after the first 4-5 or so hours was kind of implied by what I was saying about the afterglow, since the main substantial effects of mushrooms only last about that time.

IMO looking at the TT and OP this thread is not a comparison nor a competition, though I certainly admit to doing some comparing of my own and I definitely find everyone's comparisons interesting... I'm not really convinced by any one answer or post alone but combining a few makes me feel like people are nailing it.

Here in the Netherlands mushrooms were legal for a pretty long time and truffles are legal still, so that puts a dent in the "LSD is more available" argument. Actually the reverse would work as an argument as well because if LSD is more elusive and mysterious that catalyzes myth telling and makes the fantasy run wild.
I think it is not one simple reason but the fact that mushrooms are natural probably only consolidates people's preconceived notions about mushrooms being more safe physically and mentally and more predictable.
I also agree with Psoodo (if this is indeed on of his arguments) that even if you get blotters you don't know if you got the REAL deal, while mushrooms are harder to fake and they also are rarely more potent than nature gave them to us. Penis Envy mutants would be an exception.
Then again, didn't LSD have it's air of notoriety and reverence already back in the day when there wasn't much else like research chemicals?

I think there are a number of differences which have been mentioned by others and I've tried to summarize a couple and add a couple in this thread, and it was hyped during the hippy age and then the rest is just a product of how culture, media, word-of-mouth, urban myths, exaggeration, hysteria and ignorance work. Especially since LSD can produce very magical and horrifying experiences so it's no wonder ideas people got about it could spiral out of control. Especially when it got banned and "good, honest" people only heard absurd messages from demonizing anti-drug campaigns.
The more it would get praised during flower power, the more LSD would be considered the epitome of its kind and therefore attacked by anti-drug campaigns.

The fact that this thread's question is about praise, recognition and notoriety reflects those parties or periods: the to be initiated or at least open minded folks and the ignorant scared folks. Though of course there is not a black and white dichotomy per se.

 

[Mitchi]

Science is cold and logical, whereas Nature is abstract and beautiful. Mess with Science and you know what to expect, mess with Nature and you're in for a surprise

Yeah the mushrooms are more feminine. The sea, the night, mother nature

 

[psood0nym]

I also agree with Psoodo (if this is indeed on of his arguments) that even if you get blotters you don't know if you got the REAL deal, while mushrooms are harder to fake and they also are rarely more potent than nature gave them to us.

Yes, you interpret me correctly. There's a lot of uncertainty entailed in buying tasteless paper on the black market, which means users defer to a combination of truth and myth in interpreting their experience, and naturally lean toward the idea that they had "real LSD" when they have a good experience, no matter the objective facts. In contrast, mushrooms look exactly like what they are -- they have salient characteristics.

 

[Roger&Me]

lsd has that lighthearted "sunshine daydream" vibe provided you don't dose too high, its more forgiving than psilocybin and therefore more fun

but it all comes down to personal preference, i know ppl that love mushies but won't touch another hit of lsd. the most common complaint i hear is that it lasts too long, most people don't like tripping for a full 12 hours

 

[Raga_Mala]

Also, our company tests for LSD, where as they do not for Mushrooms.

I call bullshit. Nobody but nobody tests for LSD. Testing for lysergics and tryptamines is pretty much totally ineffective. Even the U.S. Military stopped testing for LSD when after years of testing not one serviceman came up positive.

 

[psy997]

It filled a role.

It was most people's first time hearing about a psychedelic, nevertheless trying one.
It was the first man-made psychedelic.
It kicked off the psychedelic/sexual/hippie revolution.

Basically it was just discovered by the right people at the right time. I believe LSD's spot as top psychedelic could be had by any 4-subbed tryptamine, phenethylamine, or even another ergoline, had they happened to be the chemical synthesized and accidentally dosed.

TLDR; Stars lining up, and the right people discovering it at the right time, with the societal attitude to take to it.

 

[deficiT]

I think psy 997 nailed it. Right place, right time, thats just how it shook out.

Personally, I've had amazing experiences with both fungus and lucy. But lucy seems to be a "problem child", hehe, for me. Another post mentioned "physically agonizing" in regards to LSD. It seems to have more psychotic mental effects for me, and more post trip anxiety. IE: cant comfortably enjoy cannabis for days afterwords. The body high "can" make my skin feel like leather and my fingers and toes tense up to the point of excruciating pain. I have had plenty of both pure lsd and "dirty" acid.

Whereas with high dose shrooms my worst effects, have been whiting out and just staring at walls, being completely unable to communicate, mentally anyway. Physcially shrooms can make you sweaty, and sick feeling like you're about to faint or puke.

It seems for most people, cid has a more party, social type feel, unlike shrooms where you can feel extremely awkward and introspective when around people. But it all depends, I've had every effect I just said from both substances at different times.

Personally, I don't understand why lucy is more popular, but that's only because I prefer shrooms. To each his own. LSD is the crown jewel of psychedelics for a reason, because it's fucking amazing. I just stay away from it because it has the potential to make me feel psychotic and epileptic.

I have a few hits stored that I have no desire to take. I'm sure I will eventually. But I also have an eighth of shrooms that I'll most likely take sometime soon, hopefully in the snow. Because I love them. They are galactic, organic, fantastic, universal, goofy, and offer me a brief respite from the toxicity slowly bubbling in my soul.

LSD may be the standard, but shrooms are my favorite spiritual ally. That's the good thing about life, I like one thing, you like the other, and if all goes well no one gets hurt and we can all stop blowing each other up with bombs

 

[Mudshark]

I like both LSD and shrooms - but I find the mushrooms taste disgusting and are much harder to ingest ...
Both can make me nauseous , the shrooms more so

Now that I have found a source of 4 - HO MET tabs , mushrooms are a thing of the past for me , as I just can't handle the rank taste .

As a standard of reference , I thought that psychedelics were measured in terms of " Mescaline Units " , as mesc was the first psychedelic to be discovered .

 

[Black]

mescaline was the first one to be studied scientifically, but lsd soon became the most exciting for this purpose (probably because of its unprecedented potency and people also were much more into synthetics back then) and basically it was the most popular one when psychedelics exploded into the mainstream (or counterculture rather...)