A reset of the mind. This is what the different studies and testimonies point to when they seek to describe what is achieved through treatment with psilocybinthe active principle that the hallucinogenic mushrooms. A natural psychedelic that does not generate dependency and that was used by different ancient cultures to heal. Already the Aztecs treated migraines and headaches with fungi that they found in grasslands or in the excrement of cattle.
In recent times the issue of mushroom microdose therapy was taking relevance. But so far only in Oregon, United States, will a pioneering testing and training program with therapeutic psilocybin begin to be implemented from the state. In Argentina, the form of administration of this tenth part of a gram of different exponents of the branch psilocybe cubensis It has different protocols that are transmitted from mouth to mouth: take one day, stop two; or take 4 days in a row and stop 3, for example. Separate a little piece of fungus, sometimes by eye, sometimes with a scale; or consume it in capsules.
Different investigations ensure that people who took psilocybin agree to have more confidence to change their behavior and even manage to control their addictions: There are studies done with alcoholics, smokers and war veterans with suicidal tendencies. There are people who testify to having strengthened their commitment to spiritual practices; they feel more gratitude, compassion, altruism and sensitivity. A major boost in your creativity. A uniqueness with the environment.
Nothing left to fear
For Mauro Eyo, taking antidepressants made him a little uncomfortable. That is why he decided to consult his psychiatrist to face an alternative process with mushroom microdoses. He already knew them from having had recreational experiences, the “journey” they call him. A situation very different from taking microdoses, but one that forever resignified the history of many people.
William recreated the self connection to which he came when he was fixing a plant in his house: “if I can save her, I can save myself”, he remembers thinking one day when he took something like 2 mg. her while she listened to a playlist made especially for these moments. In 1961, in a letter to psychologist Timothy Leary, the writer Jack Kerouac told what happened to him when he tried psilocybin: “Mostly I felt like a floating Genghis Kahn, sitting on my flying carpet with my gods by my side, an ancient feeling of temples, a lovely dream,” he wrote. “When I woke up the next morning , for an instant I felt that the whole neighborhood was at peace because they knew that I was the Master of the Truth of the Heavens”.
At the time, the boxer Mike Tyson revealed that following ripping off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear with his teeth, he went on a mushroom trip and his life completely changed. model and activist Calu Rivero He also made statements regarding mushroom therapies: “It is something that helps you see what is inside, in your unconscious. It’s ‘wow’, she expressed in an interview last May. Thanks to psilocybin, among other things, I began to understand my own connection to being a woman.”
in the documentary Fantastic Fungi Netflix, mycologist Paul Stamatets recounted how, thanks to an experience with mushrooms, he stopped stuttering, something he had done all his life. Until that day. Until he tripped on psilocybin.
The microdose treatment it is performed outside of a supervised clinical setting and there are no standards governing amounts and frequencies of use.
But microdose treatment It is something very different: one of the biggest differences with travel is that it does not have a “stick”. Mauro, like many others, found this option to treat uncomfortable symptoms less invasive than pharmacological medication. He even started taking it while continuing his antidepressant. However, as he began to feel less anxious in the morning, he lowered it. The two medicines are not incompatible, he says. But there are those who do not advise it. What happens is that, since there is not enough documented information, there are still unfinished business. It is a practice that takes place outside of a supervised clinical setting and there are no standards governing amounts and frequencies of use. It is also not known what happens in the long term.
“It opens people up to the great mystery of what we don’t know,” summed up the director of the Psychedelic Research Center of the Universidad Johns Hopkins, Roland Griffiths. There, the studies with psychedelics that had been promoted in the United States in the 60’s and 70’s were resumed, but that were suspended when the substance escaped from the laboratories and began to be consumed massively without controls. In a recent interview with Scientific Americanthe neuroscience professor talked regarding the research they carried out with cancer patients who took a psilocybin shot in a ceremonial setting and accompanied. The researcher said that, during the process, they verified that people reached a broader picture where “everything is fine” and “there is nothing to fear”.
Mushrooms are not magical: there has to be a certain predisposition to change.
Mauro Eyo, user.
Mauro says that with the new medicine -yes, that’s what he calls it- he can work better in everyday life. That he faces his problems better, that he was losing fears. That he liked a girl, that he didn’t know how to ask her out. And that’s how she managed to do it. Accompanied by the work in therapy and added to his “will”, he was acquiring a “cosmovision” of himself. “Mushrooms are not magical, there has to be a certain predisposition to change”, he evaluated.
How does psilocybin work?
The effects of psilocybin are observed on connectivity in the default neural network (NDN), a set of brain regions that collaborate with each other in resting states, and on the transmission of information. In turn, the classic psychedelics interact with one of the receptors of the serotonin.
People who took psilocybin reported significant improvements when they managed to have a mystical-type experience.
Carla Pallavicini, from Cocacolab.
In Argentina There are still many obstacles to researching psychedelics, but the laboratory led by Enzo Tagliazzucchi (cocucolab.orgfoundation phalarislab.org ) it is in the process of obtaining the approval of a protocol which is going to reproduce the John Hopkins experiment with cancer patients, but adding a three-day meditation retreat. Carla Pallavicini, who is part of the team, explained to Diary With You that people who took psilocybin “reported significant improvements when they managed to have a mystical-type experience.”
So far, the lab has only done observational research in which they measured people who were going to consume mushrooms obtained by themselves. To carry out one of them, where the psilocybin ceremony was complemented by a guided meditation called Compassionate Imagery, the Spinoza company, of which Fernando “Aíto” De la Rúa is a part, collaborated. Calu Rivero’s partner, in turn, has a project called “Fungi & Mind Evolution”, led by Tagliazucchi.
What is proven, and what is not
In one of these studies, researchers introduced placebos, coordinating with the volunteers the preparation of doses with other types of mushrooms that did not contain psilocybin. In this regard, Pallavicini assured that found no differences between that substance and the microdose.
Regarding the observations made in people who microdosedPallavicini said that the volunteers expressed feeling a difference in relationship with time: They said that the day “yielded more” for them. She links this feeling to the ability to be “focused,” knowing that they are actively doing something that they believe makes them better. For the researcher, the consumption of microdoses of mushrooms is going to make a path linked to expectations, to the parameters that imply having a positive modification in routines and to therapies that are carried out in parallel. “That combination can generate very important changes,” she considered.
The specialist agreed with studies by John Hopkins or Imperial College London (which compared the efficacy of psilocybin with that of the antidepressant escitalopram), in which psilocybin therapy can be used to treat pathologies as the depression or certain types of anxiety.
Although your team will only now start to have results of its own when you get the permissions to import, have and manage the synthetic.
Psilocybin it has no risks of generating toxicity but its use is not suggested in people with some type of psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders or who have a relative with these diagnoses.
