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As with many psychoactive substances, the effects of psychedelic mushrooms are subjective and unpredictable. A common misconception, even seen in the professional environment, is that the effects experienced from psilocybin are due to a poisonous nature of the compound, yet the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a branch of the Center for Disease Control, rated psilocybin less toxic than Aspirin or Nicotine. The intoxicating effects of psilocybin-containing mushrooms typically last anywhere from 4 to 7 hours.
The experience is typically inwardly oriented, with strong visual and auditory components. Visions and revelations may be experienced, and the effect can range from exhilarating to distraught. There can be also a total absence of effects, even with large doses. This depends on the strain of mushroom, the quality of the yield and conditions of growth.
A single dried mushroom of one of the common Psilocybe cubensis variety. When bruised, it will often turn a bluish or purplish color; however, this is not a suitable indicator of the presence of psilocybin, seeing as a number of poisonous mushrooms also have cyanic reactions to bruising.As with other psychedelics such as LSD, the experience, or "trip," are strongly dependent upon set and setting. A negative environment could likely induce a bad trip, whereas a comfortable and familiar environment would allow for a pleasant experience. In a shamanic setting, the Mazatecs purify themselves before a velada (or "vision quest") by abstaining from meat, eggs, alcohol, and sex for four days. The veladas are always done in the dark, in a protected and sealed space which no one may enter or leave until all have regained their composure. Modern psychonauts often speak of "packing for the trip," by which is meant a loading of information into the brain prior to "departure," for example, by reading a philosophical writing or indulging in a thought provoking document or film in the days prior to a planned experience.
There have been calls for medical investigation of the use of psilocybin-containing mushrooms for the treatment of chronic cluster headaches, following numerous anecdotal reports of benefits.
Physical
Typical doses may cause a number of small effects, such as loss of appetite. Higher doses (typically 2½ grams and above) cause numerous effects such as feelings of coldness, numbness of the mouth and adjacent features, nausea, weakness in the limbs (making locomotion difficult), excessive yawning which usually occurs during the come-up, feelings of ability to fly, swollen features, pupil dilation, and stiffness in points of the body, often the result of the users staying in awkward positions because of their inability to accurately judge the flow of time and their level of fatigue.
Sensory
As with many hallucinogens, the sensory effects are often the most dramatic of the experience. Common doses cause effects such as a noticeable feeling of heaviness, relaxation, enhancement and contrasting of worldly colors, strange light phenomena (such as auras around lights sources), surfaces that seem to ripple, shimmer, or breathe, and other such visual hallucinations.
Higher doses elicit a variety of intensified and distinct perceptual changes: complex open and closed eye visuals of form constants or images, objects that warp, morph, or change solid colors (juxtaposed with the free-flowing colors of LSD), a sense of melting into the environment, trails behind moving objects, and auditory hallucinations.
Natural and artificial sounds seem to be heard with increased clarity; music, for example, can often take on a profound sense of cadence and depth. Intriguingly, some users speak about the feeling of their senses overlapping or synesthesia, a rather interesting experience wherein the user perceives, for example, a visualization of color upon hearing a particular sound. The surface detail of everyday objects is viewed with increased acuity. Unusual natural designs, such as wood grain, flow like rivers. Interesting textures can be quite stimulating to some users. A simple action such as pouring water into a glass can be extremely visually stimulating.
Emotional
Feelings of bliss, relaxation, wonder, anxiety, sadness, or fear have all been reported. Some users may experience intense episodes of hilarity, such as laughing for the duration of the psychedelic experience. Emotions can be experienced with increased sensitivity.
Higher doses carry the increased possibility of a surreal event known as ego death, whereby the user loses the sense of boundaries between their self and the environment, creating a sort of perceived universal unity. Users may experience intense feelings of connectivity with a higher power. Contradictory emotions, such as euphoria and despair, can be experienced simultaneously.A sense of paranoia may be present, and if provoked enough, could culminate into a bad trip. However, the possibility of a bad trip happening can be reduced by a comfortable set and setting.
In 2006, a government funded, randomized and double-blinded study by Johns Hopkins University, studied the spiritual effects of psilocybin mushrooms. The study involved 36 college-educated adults who had never tried psilocybin or had a drug abuse history and had religious or spiritual interests; the average age of the participants was 46 years. The participants were closely observed for eight-hour intervals in a laboratory while under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms. One-third of the participants reported the experience was the single most spiritually significant experience of their lifetimes and more than two-thirds reported it was among the top five most spiritually significant experiences. Two months after the study, 79 percent of the participants reported increased wellbeing or satisfaction; friends, relatives, and associates confirmed this. The study also found "about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia."
Psychological
Common experiences typically exhibit changes such as an increased ability to concentrate on memories, feelings of time dilation, abstract and distractive thought patterns (can cause indecisiveness), phonetic experimentation with vowels, consonants, or click consonants (known as glossolalia), and epiphanies about life. In a way, mushrooms allow what would typically be bypassed by the brain's own natural filters to be magnified, along with the ideas and emotions that may accompany such thoughts. This can be seen as both good and bad, as it may allow for an ease of the ability to focus on stressful matters, or it could also lead to a bad trip.
As dose increases, so do the alterations in perception and consciousness. Significant amounts of time can be spent in deep philosophical or introspective silence. This introspective mindset, if negative, can often be painful and uncomfortable for the user to experience and can last minutes to hours. Users can lose touch with reality in varying degrees, and their egos may undergo a number of separations. The loss of reality can be quite intense if a large amount has been taken; often users will attempt to describe the experience, but will be faltered by the lack of proper words.
