Psilocybin mushroom

Psilocybe cubensis Mushroom

Psilocybin mushrooms, Magic Mushrooms, or simply Shrooms, are blanket terms given to a number of fungi with psychedelic effects, normally containing the psychoactive components psilocin and psilocybin. There are about a million billion different types of shrooms, many with deadly-poisonous lookalikes, so don't fuck around. Sporeprint IDs are the only surefire way to know exactly what you're dealing with. Visual IDs on websites aren't nearly as reliable, and if you think you should wait to gobble the batch of mushrooms you picked in the cowshit out back until you're 100% sure of what they are, you're probably right.

/psy/ gets about 3000 "What kind of mushroom is this guys" threads a day, so ask there only as a last resort. A better thing to do would be take some good clear pictures of them, do a sporeprint then ask the guys over at The Shroomery with as much info you have on your shrooms. They really know their stuff over there and its a great resource for all things mushroom and mycology related

They are consumed for recreational, religious, and medical use. This article is not about Amanita Muscaria, a mushroom with completely different psychoactive properties. A typical price from a street dealer should be $25 for an eighth (3.5 grams).

Finding Mushrooms

Remember to be careful and don't go picking any random mushroom that grows on your front lawn. There are various types that are not psychoactive and eating the wrong one will give you a trip to the emergency room instead. Here are some possible locations to where you can possibly go find some:

• They can occasionally be found on cow shit.
• They can occasionally be found growing on pine trees.
• They manifest a few days after rain.

Find them from a dealer who knows what he's doing in growing them or gets them from a grower. Don't go looking through shit for them!

Effects

Positive

• mood lift, euphoria
• giggling, laughter, giddiness
• creative, philosophical or deep thinking : ideas flow more easily
• boring tasks or entertainment can become more interesting or funny
• sensation of insight
• life-changing spiritual experience
• intense feelings of wonder
• paradoxical feeling of a normalcy and deep alteration of psyche
• may interrupt cluster sequences in those suffering from cluster headaches

Neutral

• feeling more emotionally sensitive
• general change in consciousness (as with many psychoactives)
• time perception alteration
• time seems to pass more slowly (minutes seem to take hours)
• sensitivity to light; lights seem brighter
• starring and rainbow patterns around pinpoint lights
• increased detection of motion in peripheral vision
• open and closed-eye visuals (common at medium or stronger dose)
• sleepiness, lethargy
• pupil dilation
• sensation of energy or buzzing in the nevous system/peripheral limbs
• memories come to life

Negative

• intense feelings of fear
• headache, usually as effects wear off, sometimes beginning the next day, lasting for up to 24 hours
• nausea, gas, gastrointestinal discomfort, especially when mushrooms are eaten raw and/or dry
• mild to severe anxiety
• dizziness, confusion
• lightheadedness or fainting (in cases of lowered blood pressure)
• can precipitate or exacerbate latent or existing mental disorders
• working memory disruption (reduced ability to do tasks requiring current remembering and attention)

Ways of consumption

• Eat them raw. Either alone or in food should do
• Boil water, wait, pour hot/warm over chopped shrooms. Wait. Drink tea, eat shrooms. Note: boiling water may be too hot and hasten the breakdown of the active alkaloids, so waiting till the water is slightly cooler should help.
• Buy capsules (00), Grind shrooms into a fine powder, stuff caps, eat caps. Each one should hold around .5g.

Combining with MAOIs

Shrooms can be combined with an MAOI, such as syrian rue, to produce an experience that mimics ayahuasca in many ways. This combination is casually referred to as shroomahuasca. Note that shroomahuasca can be very intense and is not recommended for inexperienced users.

Side-effects of long time shroom usage

Long time/frequent shroom users may experience HPPD, or Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. Little research has been done on the cause, severity or impact of HPPD. It is reported that HPPD has a significantly diverse range and scale of affect. It has been reported that it can be a minor, unintrusive and temporary impact of psychedelic use yet in some cases it is a permanent and invasive disorder.

Identifying Mushrooms

This is sometimes very tricky, with the most common way of verification being spore printing. Most, but not all, psilocybin containing mushrooms will bruise a bluish color when handled. Although this is a good indicator of a psychedelic mushroom, it is not entirely trust worthy. The best thing to do is learn your shit... get a few books, and go out into the wild. If you aren't 100% sure what you found is psychedelic (or even edible) then don't fucking eat it. There are many types of mushrooms that will kill you. The safest way to identify psychedelic mushrooms is to either grow them yourself from spores, or to find a trusted source. Wrongly identified mushrooms may lead to a horrible, irreversible, agonizing death. Mushrooms have names like "Destroying Angel" for a reason. If you suspect you ate a poison mushroom, get your ass to an emergency room ASAP, preferably with one of the mushrooms you ate. You might not feel the effects of bad mushrooms until hours after eating.

Psychoactive Species

Following info from "Psychoactive Mushroom Species"^[1] document on shroomery.org Genus Conocybe Conocybe is a fairly large genus with over 50 species in North America alone. At least one species in this genus, Conocybe filaris (= Pholiotina filaris), is deadly poisonous. Conocybes are often called dunce caps or cone heads because they usually have a conical or bell-shaped cap. They are mostly fragile, often ephemeral, Mycena-like mushrooms with a long, thin and fragile stem and rusty-brown to ochre-brown spores. Conocybes are largely differentiated on microscopic characters. They are sometimes confused with genus Psilocybe mushrooms, but have brighter brown spores. Among the brown-spored mushrooms, they are easily to be confused with Bolbitius, which usually have a distinctly viscid, striate cap, and Galerina, which have a filamentous rather than cellular cap cuticle (it looks like weaved fibers under the microscope whereas those of Conocybe are composed of inflated round cells resembling cobblestones) and an often viscid and/or translucent-striate cap. These mushrooms are partial to warm weather and fruit in great abundance on watered lawns. Some, such as Conocybe lactea, are so frail that they shrivel up or topple over a few hours after appearing.

• Conocybe cyanopus
• Conocybe kuehneriana
• Conocybe smithii

Genus Copelandia According to Rolf Singer's interpretation of the Coprinaceae family, genus Copelandia which includes more than 10 different species is one of at least three (sub)genera stemming from the traditional notion of the genus Panaeolus. Although some American mycologists strictly refer to the genus as Copelandia, most European mycologists prefer Panaeolus. At the moment the names of the species in both genera are used as synonims (e.g. Copelandia cyanescens = Panaeolus cyanescens etc.). The genus Copelandia was named by Italian mycologist Abb Giacomo Bresadola (1847-1929) in honor of Edwin Bingham Copeland (1873-1964), an American research associate in botany who gathered fungi in the Philippines and presumably sent his collections - among which happened to be a bluing Panaeolus species - to Bresadola. Copelandias are black spored dung inhabiting tropical and subtropical mushrooms that readily bruise blue and feature a characteristic form of pleurocystidia.

• Copelandia affinis
• Copelandia anomala
• Copelandia bispora
• Copelandia cambodginiensis
• Copelandia chlorocystis
• Copelandia cyanescens
• Copelandia lentisporus
• Copelandia mexicana
• Copelandia tirunelveliensis
• Copelandia tropica
• Copelandia tropicalis
• Copelandia westii

Genus Gymnopilus This genus contains around 200 rusty-orange spored mushroom species formerly divided among Pholiota and the defunct genus Flammula. The fruiting body is typically reddish brown to rusty orange to yellow, the cap is dry with small reddish fibers, taste is bitter and a veil is often present. The vast majority of species grow on wood but at times may appear terrestrial if it's buried or decomposed. Pholiota and Cortinarius are the genera most often confused with Gymnopilus. Pholiota, however, usually has a viscid cap and duller (brown to cinnamon brown) spores, and Cortinarius grows on the ground. To an untrained eye there are also similarities to the genus Galerina which contains some deadly poisonous mushrooms.

• Gymnopilus aeruginosus
• Gymnopilus luteofolius
• Gymnopilus spectabilis (= Gymnopilus junonius)
• Gymnopilus purpuratus

Genus Inocybe With Inocybe, you are truly dancing with danger in a mycological minefield of edible, psychoactive, and toxic (primarily of the muscarinic type) mushrooms. In fact, Inocybe contains a higher percentage of poisonous species than any other major mushroom genus, including Amanita. Also, species in this genus are some of the most difficult to identify accurately, even for the most experienced mycologists. The late Dr. Daniel Stunz spent several decades studying this genus, and estimated 400-600 species, of which approximately 150 are recognized. Most Inocybes have not been tested for their edibility, toxicity, or psilocybin activity. Of those that have been tested, five species tested positive for psilocybin. Many species, including I. sororia, I. maculata, I. pudica, and I. geophylla, contain toxic levels of muscarine. None have yet been found to contain both psilocybin and muscarine, but there is no reason to believe that the compounds should be mutually exclusive. The best means of recognizing an Inocybe is by its characteristically silky, fibrillose, minutely scaly, and/or wooly cap which is often umbonate and seldom viscid. The spore colour is some shade of brown, and is generally duller than that of Cortinarius. In addition, most Inocybes have a noticeable odor - occasionally sweet or fruity as in I. pyriodora, but more often unpleasant (pungent, spermatic, fishy, or like fresh green corn but not often radishlike as in Hebeloma). Like Cortinarius, Inocybes are largely terrestrial and mycorrhizal and are a major fungal facet of temperate forests. Unlike Cortinarius, they are not the least bit colourful. They come in an endless, senseless procession of boring browns, yucky yellows, gratuitous grays, and wishy-washy whites, with only I. lilacina (among the common species) deviating from the norm. Extreme caution is advised when dealing with this genus, as you are more likely to find one that is toxic before you will find one that is psilocybin active or innocuous.

• Inocybe aeruginascens
• Inocybe coelestium
• Inocybe corydalina
• Inocybe haemacta

Genus Panaeolus Genus Panaeolus belongs to the family Coprinaceae. It is a relatively small genus of black spored little brown mushrooms with a bell shaped to conical cap and thin, brittle stalk. The sides of the gills often have a mottled or spotted appearance due to uneven maturation of the spore producing cells (basidia), but they do not deliquesce (a process of autodigestion whereby the cap is reduced to a black liquid) as in Coprinus. Psathyrellas are similar but do typically grow in decayed wood substrata and in soils, and those that grow in grass tend to have a convex cap and/or dark brown spores. Psilocybes and Conocybes are common in dung, but do not have black spores. Panaeolus is abundant in pastures, lawns, and manure heaps, fruiting whenever it's moist. It often mixes company with other species. There are no known poisonous mushrooms in this genus.

• Panaeolus africanus
• Panaeolus castaneifolius
• Panaeolus papilionaceus (probably inactive)
• Panaeolus subbalteatus

Genus Pluteus These pinkish-spored mushrooms have a central ringless stem that can be broken away from the cap with ease, and close gills, free at maturity. Being wood decomposers they grow almost exclusively on wood. The wood, however, may be buried or decomposed, making the mushrooms appear terrestrial. Most species have soft flesh and they decay rapidly. They are segregated primarily on microscopic features such as structure of the cap cuticle and the the shape of cystidia (sterile cells on the gills). Worldwide, there are over 100 members in this genus. Edibility of the five inactive Pluteus species described in David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified is either edible and good (P. petasatus, P. cervinus, P. lutescens) or unknown (P. longistriatus, P. flavofuligineus). Pluteus is frequently encountered but rarely abundant. They are most often confused with the pinkish, angular spored Entolomataceae, which are usually terrestrial with gills attached to the stem.

• Pluteus cyanopus
• Pluteus glaucus
• Pluteus salicinus
• Pluteus villosus

Genus Psilocybe The genus Psilocybe contains roughly 180 small to medium-sized saprophytic mushroom species that can be found in a wide range of habitats: dungs, mosses, soils, grasslands, or decaying wood debris. When moist, most species have viscid, deep-brown caps that fade in drying to yellowish brown (i.e., are hygrophanous). The more active species, particularly those high in psilocin, bruise bluish where injured. The gills are usually dark brown in color with whitish edges, and range from being subdecurrent to acutely ascending in their attachments. Almost any LBM (Little Brown Mushroom) can be mistaken carelessly for a Psilocybe - with potentially disastrous results! A good spore print is crucial, as it will eliminate the brown spored genera (Galerina, Inocybe, Conocybe etc.), which contain many poisonous species. Among the dark-spored genera, Coprinus has deliquescing gills, Psathyrella typically has a non-viscid cap and never stains blue, Panaeolus species with a viscid cap grow on dung and have black spores, and Hypholoma (= Naematoloma) and Stropharia species are usually brightly coloured, while the cap colour in Psilocybe (with the notable exception of P. cubensis) is typically some shade of brown, gray, or buff.

• Psilocybe antioquensis
• Psilocybe arcana
• Psilocybe atlantis
• Psilocybe aucklandii
• Psilocybe australiana
• Psilocybe aztecorum
• Psilocybe azurescens
• Psilocybe baeocystis
• Psilocybe bohemica
• Psilocybe brasiliensis
• Psilocybe caerulescens
• Psilocybe caerulipes
• Psilocybe columbiana
• Psilocybe cubensis
• Psilocybe cyanescens
• Psilocybe cyanofibrillosa
• Psilocybe fimetaria
• Psilocybe heimii
• Psilocybe hispanica
• Psilocybe hoogshagenii
• Psilocybe mammillata
• Psilocybe mexicana
• Psilocybe moravica
• Psilocybe natalensis
• Psilocybe pelliculosa
• Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata
• Psilocybe portoricensis
• Psilocybe quebecensis
• Psilocybe samuiensis
• Psilocybe sanctorum
• Psilocybe semilanceata
• Psilocybe sierrae
• Psilocybe silvatica
• Psilocybe strictipes (= Psilocybe callosa)
• Psilocybe stuntzii
• Psilocybe subaeruginosa
• Psilocybe subcubensis
• Psilocybe tampanensis
• Psilocybe uxpanapensis
• Psilocybe weilii
• Psilocybe xalapensis
• Psilocybe zapotecorum

Genus: Weraroa This genus of fungi are referred to as sequestrate fungi, which means that they have lost their ability to forcefully eject their spores. Instead they rely on insects and birds to eat and disperse them. Weraroa novae-zelandiae is easily identifiable. A good description of how it looks would be 'snot on a stick', or maybe even little bird eggs. They don't look like traditional mushrooms, instead, just round balls ranging in colour from pale grey (when undisturbed) to a dark blue. Their shape can vary a lot too, and many of them will be a lot more deformed than simply round. I've heard that drying them out actually causes them to lose potency, but I can't confirm this.

• Weraroa novae-zelandiae

FAQ

Just found this shroom in my yard if i eat it whole wet will it give me a good trip? Be careful

External Links

• Shroomery - Magic Mushrooms (Shrooms) Demystified
• Erowid - Psilocybin Mushrooms Vault

See Also

• Psilocybin