Why I Microdose Mushrooms for Depression and ADHD

Oregon becomes the first state to legalize Magic Mushooms! And several cities across America have decriminalized them.

Psilocybin is the active compound in magic mushrooms and has long been used in tribal ceremonies to be a bridge to other dimensions and to delve into the imagination within.

It causes euphoria, time distortion, visual hallucinations and if it's doing what it's supposed to, you might experience "Eureka" moments of epiphany or have a spiritual awakening. You could have out-of-body experiences or be able to bounce a ball a few times out of the car window and back while doing 70 miles an hour down the freeway.

That's if you're taking a healthy amount to "trip" about 1 and 1/2 grams or more. But you may be interested in magic mushrooms in small doses to help with depression, anxiety, ADHD or simply to improve cognition or give a boost to your creativity.

I began microdosing one and a half years ago and I do it 2 times a week-sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

What I noticed immediately with a microdose of .41 - a little under a half gram is how my brain suddenly quieted down. Up until that moment, I hadn't realized how noisy the chatter in my head had gotten. Not like I was "hearing voices" or anything like that, it just quieted down the internal chatter of conflicting thoughts happening simultaneously. Or "loud thoughts" as I call them-when something pops into your head and it makes you jump, gasp or blurt suddenly and you have to catch yourself-look around to make sure no one witnessed you stop in your tracks, react to some thought as if you'd just seen a ghost or hit an invisible wall, give a sharp shriek, and then keep walking like nothing.

Magic mushrooms, much like marijuana for me has the tendency to make me view everything from a different vantage point. Changing the perspective is a constant with these substances. It's one of the most pivotal aspects of any psychedelic experience, how it alters what you think about and how you think it.

It also can produce profound changes to the brain in the treatment of depression. The FDA has finally concluded it as a "breakthrough therapy" for medicine resistant MDD(major depressive disorder).

I find that anywhere from .21 to .45, that's less than a quarter gram to a under half a gram is sufficient. I used to trip hard when I was in my teens and 20's a fair amount, mostly on LSD(which I actually prefer) but I had done magic mushrooms & mescaline. Never have tried peyote, DMT or ayahuasca. I didn't like salvia at all.

Anyway, I was diagnosed "hyperactive" when I was 3 and put on Ritalin and had been taking antidepressants since the age of 16 on up until about 10-12 years ago when I quit taking antidepressants and dexedrine, a stimulant for ADHD.

I was having really bad withdrawals from the antidepressants-these brain zaps-unnerving little buzzes in the middle of my head. Doctor told me it was my brain "reoxidizing" whatever that means and that's why it was happening. I went off of the meds. too quickly perhaps so I still get those buzzes-but I had decided against going back on them.

From then my memory suffered-felt like I blew a capacitor. I felt not having the antidepressants made me dumber. I don't consider myself to be very smart in the first place but the antidepressants did help like when I was in school--grades went up dramatically.

The depression got worse, I figured it would but it's alright, I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and the mushrooms help dramatically. I'm generally happier, my girlfriend tells me I'm friendlier when I do them. I feel generally better overall.

It's not as if it makes an obvious, startling change, it's regulated because it's easy for the tolerance to go up. I do this roughly twice a week -as I feel it really, you have to be somewhat in tune with your own body to know whether it feels like the right time to do it or not.

I feel more creative for doing them. Really I don't know how I would be faring without mushrooms. They do really help with irritability & patience. And flexibility. I'm not as jumpy or as easily startled.

In fact, now I can just go zen, if need be. Not shut down, that's a different thing, that'll happen under extreme stress--my body just goes to sleep. But when I go zen..I just kinda let everything go and relax with whatever is before me, get all giddy with it or start cracking jokes--light hearted yet still slightly caustic. Things roll off my normally somewhat hyper reactive back.

I feel more in tune with things, I feel more empathy(although i have empathic traits already)for people.

I have more tolerance because I'm not so wound up in my own space that I can't see objectively. I don't get so rigid and stuck in my own pov that anything else is unacceptable or wrong.

I'm not nearly so depressed.

I also have pretty severe social anxiety that is much lessened when micro dosing.

According to Inverse website in their article "Neuroscientists uncover how magic mushrooms "rebalance" the brain":

Psilocybin — the hallucinogenic chemical in certain mushrooms — can reshape cells in the brain, and increasingly, shows potential for treating addiction or depression. Now, using new brain models, scientists are getting a better idea of how it all happens.

S cientists constructed a model of the human brain on psilocybin, illuminating how magic mushrooms allow our brain to access untapped potential. This model shows that, under the influence of psilocybin, the brain creates a feedback loop of neuron activity and neurotransmitter release (the chemical messengers that neurons use to communicate).

That dynamic creates A ONE-TWO PUNCH that could allow the brain to TAP INTO OTHERWISE INACCESSIBLE STATES, including the "destabilization" of individual brain networks and the creation of a more "global" network across the brain.

This study is based on brain images taken from nine participants who were either injected with psilocybin or a placebo. The scientists used those images to create a "whole-brain connectome" which provides a picture of all the physical neurons in the brain, as well as the activity of the neurotransmitters that are being shuttled back and forth.

During your average day in the human brain, neurons are constantly firing and neurotransmitters are traveling well-trodden paths through the brain, somewhat like cars on a freeway. On magic mushrooms, those networks are "destabilized", Kringlebach explains.

Previous research has shown that new networks appear in tandem. It's as if those cars on the freeway were given free rein to stray from the highway and take back roads towards new destinations.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/how-do-magic-mushrooms-affect-the-brain

So what I glean from that is that instead of neurons firing off in just one area of the brain, the psilocybin allows for connectivity throughout the entire brain and that within or above/below/beside those networks are other layered networks waiting for the neural connection.

Sounds like psilocybin enables us to actually use more of our brain linking to paths otherwise not trod.

I know that my view point seems broader for doing magic mushrooms, I'm more open, accepting and it actually prompts me out of my introversion and it makes me unafraid somewhat of people in general.

I know research on this subject is still scant but I can tell you it's made a big difference in my life.

Thank you for reading