HEMPEARTH – How To Take Magic Mushrooms

Many factors contribute to the psilocybin experience, including dose, mindset, setting, and your body’s personal chemistry. With that in mind, each individual journey will be unique to the person, time, and place, and there’s no way to predict exactly what will happen. But understanding the common experiences and effects of psilocybin will help you prepare for your journey.

During a psilocybin experience, you can expect to experience perceptual changes, synesthesia, emotional shifts, and a distorted sense of time. Perceptual changes can include visuals such as halos around lights and objects as well as geometric patterns when your eyes are closed. You may also experience vivid colours, tracers, distorted vision, and a sense of the world breathing around you.

Thoughts and emotions can change, too. It’s not uncommon to have a sense of openness to thoughts and feelings that you avoid in your everyday life, as well as a sense of wonder and delight with the world around you, the people in your life, and your own mind. You may also feel a sense of peace and connection with the world.

Microdose (0.05-0.25 g)

A microdose is a sub-perceptual (unnoticeable) dose, which many people incorporate into their weekly routines. The idea behind this is to enhance levels of creativity, energy, and focus, and decrease levels of stress, anxiety, and emotional instability. Common effects include:

• Mood enhancement.
• Decreased stress.
• Emotional stability.
• Mindfulness, presence, and peace.
• Openness and self-forgiveness.
• Conversational fluidity.
• Alleviation of persistent conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, and PTSD.
• Increased motivation (e.g. to make positive lifestyle changes).
• Increased flow states.
• Clearer, more connected thinking.
• Improved memory.
• Increased creativity.
• Easier meditation.
• Enhanced athletic endurance.
• Increased energy overall (without anxiety or a subsequent crash).

Mini-dose (0.25-0.75 g)

While a proper microdose shouldn’t be felt, a mini-dose of psilocybin takes you just above the perceptual threshold—but it’s not a full-blown trip. As one of our community members put it, a mini-dose gives you “that total expansion of being, total freeflow feeling” without losing touch with your surroundings. Common effects include:

• Mood enhancement, mild euphoria or excitement.
• Mindfulness, presence, and peace.
• Openness and self-forgiveness.
• Introspective insights.
• Alleviation of persistent conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, and PTSD.
• Increased motivation (e.g. to make positive lifestyle changes).
• Increased flow states.
• Clearer, more connected thinking.
• Enhanced senses.
• Easier meditation.
• Increased enjoyment of physical activity and everyday tasks.
• Preference for introspection over socializing.
• Increased sensitivity to light.
• Very mild visuals, if any.

Museum dose (0.5-1.5 g)

The effects of psilocybin are more apparent with a museum dose than with a mini-dose, but a museum dose still won’t give you a full psychedelic experience. The name “museum dose,” coined by a biochemist and pharmacologist , refers to the fact that on this dose, you can still participate in public activities (such as viewing paintings in a museum) without attracting attention. Common effects include:

• Mood enhancement, euphoria or excitement.
• Mild to moderate visuals (e.g. “breathing” environments).
• Increased empathy.
• Conversational fluidity.
• Introspection.
• Increased flow states.
• Enhanced senses.
• Enhanced appreciation for music, art, etc.
• Increased creativity.
• Amplification of mood.
• Altered perception of sound.
• Time dilation or contraction (time passing more slowly or quickly).

Moderate dose (2-3 g)

This is where the full psychedelic experience begins. You’ll likely see visual hallucinations, including patterns and fractals, and things like time and depth perception will be distorted. But with this dose, you’re still able to grasp your surroundings—they’ll just be highly altered. Common effects include:

• Life-changing introspective or philosophical insights,
• Increased flow of ideas.
• Enhanced appreciation for music, art, etc.
• Finding otherwise mundane things funny or interesting.
• Clear come-up, peak, and come-down.
• Amplification of emotions, whether good or bad.
• Open- and closed-eye visuals (e.g. patterns, auras).
• Synesthesia.

Megadose (5+ g)

A megadose brings on a total loss of connection with reality. This is where you’ll experience intense hallucinations, as well as ego death, mystical experiences, and deep introspection. Common effects include:

• Mystical experience and intense feelings of wonder.
• Life-changing introspective or philosophical insights.
• Ego death.
• Very strong open- and closed-eye visions (e.g. memories coming to life).
• Synesthesia.
• Time becoming meaningless.

As always, the mantra for trying a new psychodelic is: “Start low, go slow.” Start with no more than one gram of dried mushrooms, or 10 mg of psilocybin. Only experiment with higher doses once you feel comfortable at a low dose.

It’s also important to take psilocybin in a safe, comfortable setting, preferably with someone to watch over you . The experiences one might have with psilocybin or other psychedelics are very sensitive to your mental and physical state, and environment—what’s known as “set and setting.”

Once you get into the “medium dose” range or higher, it’s important to be extra mindful of what you’re dealing with.