5 Things You Didn’t Know About Psychedelic Mushrooms
“Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.” — Bob Dylan
This year, Denver voted to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, also known as psychedelic or “magic” mushrooms. Efforts to decriminalize and research the drug have popped up all over the country. Things are changing locally too, with CSU starting its own Psychedelic Club and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) doing research in Fort Collins. However, it’s no doubt that copious amounts of misinformation exist on psychedelics too. Here’s five things you didn’t know about magic mushrooms.
5. It’s not just hallucinating
Many people seem to be under the impression that ingesting magic mushrooms only creates hallucinogenic effects. However, the fact of the matter is that there are a ton of different effects and feelings associated with ingesting mushrooms. Some of these effects include euphoria, a sense of peacefulness or being one with the universe, and an altered perception of time or space. There are also negative effects associated with psilocybin, such as nausea, shaking, dizziness and paranoia.
4. Hallucinations are not what pop culture portrays
There are a lot of misconceptions about what magic mushrooms do, especially when it comes to hallucinations. Pop culture has portrayed hallucinations as being extreme experiences in which the user’s world completely changes to them. In many cases, a cartoon character, such as dinosaurs or Sasquatch, may approach and speak to the psychedelic user. It’s important to understand that this isn’t how hallucinations work. Although hallucinations can be auditory and visual, they will never transport a person to a completely fictional cartoon universe (though they can still be very intense). An example of an auditory hallucination would be someone hearing a symphony in their head, whereas an example of a visual hallucination may be perceiving clouds to be moving and swaying much faster than they really are.
3. Psilocybin use is believed to have started in Central and South America
The use of magic mushrooms isn’t an activity that took off in the 1960’s. Instead, it’s believed that the use of psilocybin for medicinal and ritualistic purposes has been going on in South and Central America for hundreds of years. In fact, psilocybin was introduced to the masses after Albert Hoffman (you know, the Swiss chemist that synthesized LSD?) isolated psilocybin from Mexican mushrooms in 1958.
2. Mushrooms have been shown to relieve symptoms of depression
Slowly but surely, the nation and the world is beginning to realize that mushrooms offer beneficial physical and mental benefits. The John Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit (JHPRU) is currently conducting research on how psilocybin relates to all sorts of issues, including anorexia, alzheimer’s and smoking cessation. However, perhaps one of the most prevalent areas being studied are the effects psilocybin has on depression. In 2016, JHPRU published research indicating that psilocybin relieved cancer-related depression. Which leads us to the final, and perhaps most important thing you didn’t know about psychedelic mushrooms…
1. Serotonin molecules and psilocin molecules are strikingly similar
When a person takes psilocybin, their body processes it into psilocin, and there’s abundant information out there stating that psilocybin and psilocin molecules bind to serotonin receptors. This may come as a shock, but it’s no surprise when one sees the startling similarities between a serotonin molecule and a psilocin chemical.
As research continues to shed more light on just how little we know about psychedelics, one thing has become remarkably clear: moving forward, we’ll need to get our facts straight.
