Side effects

[TheFriendlyPlanter]

As far as i can tell most funky mushrooms contain a drug (eg psilocybin) and an array of other wierd compounds, some of which could be regarded as poisonous etc.

I'm just wondering about the side effects of taking mushies. Do they kinda fuck your brain so-to-speak. Would the side effects be caused by the psilocybin or the other unwanted compounds, or both?

What sorta long-term side effects could one be in-for if experimenting with shrooms?

-Cheers

[Hyphal]

As far as i can tell most funky mushrooms contain a drug (eg psilocybin) and an array of other wierd compounds, some of which could be regarded as poisonous etc.

I'm just wondering about the side effects of taking mushies. Do they kinda fuck your brain so-to-speak. Would the side effects be caused by the psilocybin or the other unwanted compounds, or both?

What sorta long-term side effects could one be in-for if experimenting with shrooms?

-Cheers

Initial side effects can include stomach cramps and generally feeling a bit sick as you try to digest them. This can be helped by drinking ginger and peppermint tea with a tiny bit of honey. Laughing until your mouth hurts from smiling is also common.

Long term side effects include understandings of the rich tapestry of the interconnectedness of energies and personal realisations of what are the best ways to direct these energies in your own life and to help those around you. (These are obviously some of the POSITIVE side effects).

Seriously though, there are some negative side effects of abuse of this substance (as with the abuse of ANY susbtance), though they are not usually witnessed in a physical sense. The drug itself has a very low toxicity in the body and is generally considered physically safe.

The negative side effects are usually in more of an emotional form, where one can start feeling detached from the reality around you.

A theory of mine is that this is due to one becoming TOO aware of the 'rich tapestry of interconnectedness' and realising just how much the the structure of the human species is desecrating it, naturally making one to want to remove themselves from that structure altogether (the profit driven corporate environment etc.). The problem here is that there is no other structure! Things are how they are and we simply have to accept it, which can be tough and seem hypocritical.

Like all substances, moderation to experimentation is the key! Don't be go overboard and don't dose too often, they are not a toy.

Follow the rules for psychedelics and use only in a safe and comfortable setting, with people your are comfortable with, and only when you are feeling emotionally stable and happy.

Used sensibly, psilocybin and the sacred mushrooms are a powerfully beneficial and very safe medicine to be treated with the utmost respect.

But MOST importantly, they should be enjoyed with a laugh and a smile...

[Undergrounder]

yeah i don't think there's much that can happen that's not preventable with moderation..

HPPD - Hallucinogen Persisting Perceptual Disorder i guess

[Teotzlcoatl]

Mushrooms DO NOT do any form of damage to the brian (not at normal doses anyway).

The are totally and competely 100% safe.

The only thing one may be warned about is having an experience which is too intense and deciding half-way through it that you "don't wanna do this anymore" and freak out. Once you take them your in for a 6 hour ride, and theres no stopping it... just remember that.

~ Teotzlcoatl ~

As previosuly stated ginger and mint greatly help with nausea, so does cannabis.

Edited October 3, 2008 by Teotz'

[alkatrope]

Mushrooms DO NOT do any form of damage to the brian (not at normal doses anyway).

The are totally and competely 100% safe.

I'm not sure you can make that claim. It takes years of research to fully understand the long term effects of any substance. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe there has been any in depth study on the long term effects of psiloc(yb)in (let alone in conjuction with the rest of the stuff in mushrooms) in man.

100% safe? What about people on medication? Or someone who might be lacking some protein or something which leads to them not being able to metabolize it properly and experiencing toxic effects?

Don't get the idea I think fungus causes brain damage.. I agree with where you're coming from, but I do not believe you can make such black and white claims. It can be misleading and potentially dangerous. There is always a risk, no matter how minute.

Unrelated to the above.. Quite a few people have reported a period of paralysis after ingesting the mushrooms, particularly the woodlovers. It's not certain but it's thought to be due to some other chemical the mushroom contains which originated from its food. Related to the above.. It is not safe to become paralysed in a number of situations.

[baphomet]

Oh FFS.. Why must I always be the bad guy?

Mushrooms can lead to some memorable experiences but this is not always such a good thing.

Sure you may laugh your ass off most times but then again you may get severe anxiety, psychosis, etc that will stick with you for months (at least). Set and setting is not always as large a factor as many people make out, while it is important, sometimes this shit can happen in an otherwise perfect environment, it's unpredictable. And NO it is not always a result of taking too many, often things like this can happen from relatively small doses.

"As previosuly stated ginger and mint greatly help with nausea, so does cannabis."

Cannabis can also help to induce psychosis when on mushrooms and can make things get pretty messy for a lot of people, if your aim is to reduce nausea the ginger is the most sensible way IMO.

Here are some trip reports from people who had bad experiences on psylocibin mushrooms taken from HERE:

"VERY BAD EXPERIENCE - I took mushrooms at the age of 20 and had a very bad experience. I became suicidal and for about 4 days I was totally wasted. Today at the age of 47 I suffer from severe depression and phobias and have had to have Shock Treatment for a breakdown. Could this be related to that bad experience all those years ago and if so what help could I get, if there is a cure available."

"I had a really bad experience on mushrooms when I took them for my 2nd time. The first time it was incredible I had uncontrollable laughter and fun visuals. The 2nd time was completely diff in every way. About 20 mins after taking them my tongue startedto vibrate inside my mouth. About 20 minutes after that I felt as though I was going to faint and I droped to the floor. For the next 5 or 6 hrs I was lying down feeling as though my brain was being squeezed and the maddest things were coming out. I was quite literally in another realm rolling about and acting insane. 2 weeks after the incident I started getting panic attacks which lasted for about a week. 3 months on and I still feel very out of sorts. I often feel faint, sick and paranoid with a racing heart beat. I have stopped drinking and smoking weed completely which brwaks my heart and I don;t feel well enough to go out and enjoy myself with my friends. Is this unusual unheard of? If not what can I do to help and how long does it usually take to go away? Any help would be very much appreciated, thanks."

"my name is Nicole and i had a terrible experience yesterday on shrooms. i had eaten shrooms twice before with no problem and can say i really enjoyed it. i am 5'2 and about 115 lbs. this time, when i ate the 8th, i didn't even finish them all. i felt fine at first. we were going to go to the beach to "people watch." i got up to go to the bathroom first and all of a sudden i felt extreme anxiety. i have never been so scared in my life. i felt like i was fighting with my self. i started screaming at my boyfriend. everything i saw was changing and i didn't know where i was. i was being really mean to him one sec and the next second i was apologizing trying to tell him i didn't mean it. i could not understand anything that was going on. i had no concept of anything. even time. i kept asking what time it was. litteraly a min felt like it should have been 2 or 3 hours. (we ate the shrooms at 9 am). he tried to put on some soothing music and i made him take it out. i couldn't even watch commercials with music on tv

Now 24 hours later i feel extremely sad and not quite myself. i know you will answer this email on your website, but i would appreciate it if youcould email me back and tell me what happened. how can i get myself feeling normal agian? thank you"

"ALLERGY / ALLERGIC REACTIONS TO LIBERTY CAPS - Dick I had my first experience of shrooms last Sunday, and it was absolutely amasing (after I got my head round the fact that I could not trust anything I was seeing, hearing or feeling). However, while coming up on them, I got cramps in both my forearms and was plagued by pins and needles in both my right arm (which actually swelled up a bit) and my right foot which stayed for some time after the trip had finished. I had a wonderful trip and would like to do it agin, however I am worried about the physical reaction to them. Am I alergic or could it be something else. Please tell me its not serious, as I am really looking forward to another go."

EDIT: Just to back up what alkatrope is saying, numbness/paralysis is not at all uncommon with Victorian subs and can freak people out at the wrong time regardless of set & setting.

Edited October 3, 2008 by baphomet

[blizznshot]

Jesus H Christ Teotz, if you don't have anything SAFE to say then for the love of all that's holy, don't say anything at all.

Giving the impression that anything of this nature is 100% safe is not only naive, but also extremely dangerous. These are powerful sacraments, and while they are most likely not harmful when used in an appropriate fashion, they are not to be taken lightly.

I've had a friend develop psychosis that persisted for over a month; REAL psychosis that nearly resulted in his withdrawal from grad school. Luckily, this turned out to be a temporary state (other than the fact that he's completely done with this type of sacrament...which is unfortunate but better than the alternative).

I'm unaware of any toxicity-related conditions, such as stroke/brain damage/etc, but as has been said, I'm unaware of any real scientific scrutiny in this area. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they are relatively safe in terms of toxicity, but you can never be sure how any given person might react.

I apologize for this flame, but it's people like Teotz that give law makers the impression that we are too dumb to decide on our own what is and isn't safe to ingest.

Edited October 3, 2008 by blizznshot

[Mr Stay Puft]

Anyone heard of serotonin syndrome? Is it possible for mushys to bring it on?

I had a pretty large dose once, about 4 to 5 hours in, more towards the comedown i had a pipe or two.

Next thing i new i woke up and everyone was looking at me extremely concerned. I blacked out for 10-15 seconds, went stiff as a board. When i woke i got the shakes and sweats, was very faint and almost blacked out 2 more times. After feeling extremely faint for the next 45-1 hour i went to hospital emerg room and have me pulse and bp taken. They seemed pretty unintersted, maybe peeved thinking these fukin druggies. Sat in er for maybe hour at most, got sick of wiating and felt a little calmer that they didnt seem to concerned when they check pulse and bp so went home and fell asleep couple of hours latter.

No real after effects apart from the fact i felt pretty ordinary next day, and have had small doses recently that have been a bit of fun... but the experience left me pretty rattled and id like to say anyone who thinks there is no risk in taking these is as ignorant as a christian!

Anyone had similar experiences?

Edited October 4, 2008 by Mr Stay Puft

[herbologist]

The second time this person ate shrooms this is what happened.

The other day he ate 3g of dried P.cubensis at about 8 in the morning. He watched a couple of movies and smoked a few cones ....All was going well......he couldn't make much sense of either of the movies .At about 1:30 on the down side of the trip now the intensity of visuals backing off ( so far everything has been normal only a little more intense and prolonged), he felt a little hungry so he ate about half a pack of bbq vege chips and a few more pipes.

he had just finished the pipes when he had a sick feeling, had a drink of water and all was fine. Within 2 minutes his hands arms and feet were numb and he could feel the blood draining from his face, his vision started to cloud, he stumbled to the bedroom and lay infront of the fan, breathing like he had just run a mile and sweating like a pig, his vision switching between clouding and blurring, his whole body felt like it was emitting energy pulses every few minutes. He remember thinking "Well now you've done it"......... After what seemed like about half an hour he started to regain some feeling in his extremedies and his vision started to settle down but he could hear this noise like an old pressure cooker venting steam off in the distance.

So he crawled out of bed in search of this noise. He got down to the end of the hall, all the while the noise increaseing in volume, before his vision phased out for pulsing rivers of colours in celtic knot designs and his knees gave out and he crashed to the floor. He some how managed to drag himself back to the bedroom. And there he lay for about 2 hours, pressure cooker noise in his head and pulsing rivers of colour. It ended as suddenly as it came on, just faded into nothing, no residuals just tired.

Edited October 4, 2008 by salem13

[gerbil]

person i know told me a similar story, they had not eaten overly well during the day, but not overly bad some processed things and that generally can seem to be a negative thing if on the sensitive side...anyway...undertook fresh subaeruginosa eaten raw, apparently around 5-6 small 3-4cm specimens; a few pipes then followed.

Not overly siginificant effects over the following hours reported, yet still strong in some degrees, quite sedated from the adjoining material, then during the late periods when it was well into the down period, the person settled into a couch with more pipes and quiet meditation, it's not known how long they were sitting.

Feeling weak (maybe 1/2 hour later??), especially brought on by pipes (blood sugar?) they walked a short distance but still a good way fairly quickly for some honey, spoon was retrieved from drawer, honey got from cupboard and just as they were opening the lid the blood drained from their head to toe and felt unbearably dizzy, they remember knowing they were going down, slimping to the floor and hearing the spoon hit the tiles, then an intense insectile buzz started and increased in intensity which melded into the strongest hallucinatory vision of their life that lasted an estimated 30sec-2minutes, then it backed off within 10 seconds and back to complete reality.

Vasovagal syncope seems to fit the bill in some regards, also low blood sugar, which assists v. s. from memory? they guessed this, the dropping guard of the bodies defence system for a short period and the lingering mush all played some sort of role?

They felt okay quite soon after, but remember feeling very very sick just before, after and or during the fainting, but a few tsp honey was had for enjoyment and that's it. Quite frightening they reported, especially since it occurred in the near or no noticeable effect stage.

[The Spoons]

Those stories are quite disturbing to say the least!

On the lighter side there's been some studies that have suggested there are long lasting psychological benefits from ingesting "active" mushrooms.

One of these studies claims "the psychoactive ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’ — linger for as much as a year"

If this is true it gives extra weight to the argument that one must allow a good period of time between trips

This is what i could dig up.

 

LINK

LINK

(this one of those pay to read articles but some of the comments are good)

 

 

[t st tantra]

have seen many noob shroom collections which contained other mushrooms!

dont eat spoiled mushrooms?

sitting or standing too long can result in vasovagal syncope as gerbil said.

shrooms contain a protein the human body cannot digest,hence the nausea etc,tea made with vit c,strained,is stronger and avoids this problem.

t s t .

[Mr Stay Puft]

i can say that there were no 'other shrooms' in my batch, but the dose was probably pushing the 'stupid' end of things, Other 5 people all had same tea and had no episode like me.

i assume that my brain just shut down for 10 or so seconds. Glad to say it turned back on!

[herbologist]

i can say that there were no 'other shrooms' in my batch

Same

He worked out that tea was the way to go. After repeating the above once more but getting very sick that time, a tea was made and all was good.

[t st tantra]

once upon a time some different shrooms grew among a patch of subs,finger thick stem,cap only slightly larger.studies revealed 4 was the max dose for these and less plus a few subs was better........the experience was said to be very deep but could have strong physical effects......someone collapsed 3 or 4 times walking across a room,each time finding themselves nowhere,having to remember their identity and then their location inorder to return to them, on the last collapse sweat poured out of the body and all was well.......just those shrooms!

t s t .

[herbologist]

Is that the same if the shrooms consumed were cubs not subs? I know jack about shrooms, I'm just trying to work out why the bad stuff happens

Edited October 6, 2008 by salem13

[t st tantra]

i think the 'bad stuff' happens cos your playing around with extreme states of body chemistry and its usually nothing to be concerned about.[usually temp and with no after effects]........in the above and some other cases i think there are other actives,baeocystine[sp?], peas have been found in some shrooms o/s,with much higher content variation than psylicibin.

also kush type stuff can be involved in such effects.

t s t .

[herbologist]

Cool, that's reassuring. Thanks for that.

[Hyphal]

once upon a time some different shrooms grew among a patch of subs,finger thick stem,cap only slightly larger.studies revealed 4 was the max dose for these and less plus a few subs was better........the experience was said to be very deep but could have strong physical effects......someone collapsed 3 or 4 times walking across a room,each time finding themselves nowhere,having to remember their identity and then their location inorder to return to them, on the last collapse sweat poured out of the body and all was well.......just those shrooms!

t s t .

Could you enlighten me to the reason you consumed unidentified mushrooms that made you pass out and fall into a fever?

I don't think you should give out such dangerous and stupid advice.

[Mr Stay Puft]

so no-one has heard of serotonin syndrome, and if so if mushys can infact induce it?

[Stinkmeat]

so no-one has heard of serotonin syndrome, and if so if mushys can infact induce it?

I've heard of it. Though, I have only had experience with it when a friend of mine got it from taking a dose of MDMA. I have no idea if mushies can effect it at all.

I just found this on wikipedia Serotonin Syndrome. It says that Psilocybin can indeed lead to Serotonin Syndrome. Though it's just wikipedia, I would probably look into some more reliable sources.

Stink

[t st tantra]

Could you enlighten me to the reason you consumed unidentified mushrooms that made you pass out and fall into a fever?

I don't think you should give out such dangerous and stupid advice.

dont believe i said the experience was mine...........saw them though and there was no doubt they were psilocybes,just a different kind,very blue before picking usually........at first no one realised they were different but after a few tries it was sorted out.......the mentioned experience was totally unexpected........but after the sweating the person felt virtually normal for someone on shrooms......there was no fever.

overall i felt reassurance was the best thing i could offer and i am happy with that.

t s t .

[Zen Peddler]

Psilocybin is actually less toxic than coffee so in relation to your body it is actually quite safe. Its easily metabolised.

There are some bizarre and occasional physiological effects that can occur during the come-up - there generally relate to sympathetic overactivity -anxiety, dizziness either from venous dilation or a sudden drop in blood sugar levels (im not really sure which).

That being said ive also encountered partial paralysis from two different lignious species - Ps.Subaeruginosa and Ps.Cyanescens, but not from Azurescens despite its reputation is the principle cause of this problem. I assume this could be something either to do with other alkaloids/compounds extracted from the rotting wood substrates or perhaps its a result of the overly high potency of these particular mushrooms (woodlovers being the most potent).

Most serious reactions to Psilocybe mushrooms in my experience relate to sudden allergic symptoms, psychological/anxiety related issues which can leave a lingering afterglow caused by succumbing to THE FEAR or misidentification which ive seen cause problems for even suprisingly experienced trippers (a couple of Stropharia Aurantiaca in a batch of subs can make you a very crook dude).

I dont believe that psilocybin/psilocin, et al can cause serotonin syndrome - I thought this was only cause by reuptake inhibators in conjunction with psychedelics/MDMA and was VERY rare??

last thing Ill say is that I can safely say that from my experience there seems to be no long term effects from significant use. Ive had friends who have encountered effects from long term use, but these usuallyt relate to particularly bad trips (which seem to happen more often with shrooms than other psychedelics) and it might be more to do with the trauma of extreme fear - possible post traumatic stress? The symptoms are quite similar.

Certainly id say other substances are more likely to give you problems. And mushrooms seem to open a latent belonging with nature and a connection with the earth that wasnt there previously.

[Legba]

Psilocybe Toxicity Information