What are my peers thoughts on Golden Teacher? Golden Teacher (GT) is the very first mushroom I cultivated. Upon drinking a tea made with this strain, I realized that I was suicidal. The mushrooms didn't initiate any thought to harm myself or others, but it was very alarming to see how low I stooped. Since then, I haven't touched GT. Thoughts of suicide never surfaced with other strains like Amazon and Ecuador.

To add on to this, a friend of mine who went to prison for botnetting gave a friend some GT. When the psychoactives of GT became active in his system, he pulled out a gun and put it to his brain. My friend had to talk him out of killing himself. It was successful.

Does anybody here associate a GT experience with suicide? In my opinion, Golden Teacher is the cubensis strain one will use to assess whether they want to kill themselves or not. The experience doesn't necessarily have to mean that a suicide plan is being put in order, it could just be that the experience makes one think of suicide.

This is something I've never come across before, even from people that have had thousands upon thousands of mushroom experiences with just about any strain you can think of. I've had only a couple of mushroom experiences, and one of them was with 5 dried grams of GTs. Even though it was a very physically challenging experience, it was also beautiful, natural, and eye-opening in many respects. I can't say I've ever assessed my suicidal tendencies during this particular journey.

With the risk of repeating an age-old adage, I do believe that these substances that us here love and respect so much are little more than tools that help us know ourselves, and the world, better. With that being said, I don't believe GTs in particular are prone to pulling up the suicidal aspect of people out, and would rather say it has to do with something internal within the person experiencing these emotions. Maybe it's a product of that person's immediate environment and connections (or lack thereof) with others. Maybe it's past trauma that is suppressed and being carried around. I don't want to be an armchair psychoanalyst of course, we are very complicated creatures. All I'm saying is I doubt that the mushroom is the one to point to as the root cause of this.

We're living through some very weird and stressful times, and the number of people that experience suicidal tendencies is rising with an alarming level. Sometimes those tendencies seem to be buried very deeply within and get revealed only during profound experiences such as one with mushrooms for example. Have you ever noticed anything similar during experiences with other substances, like LSD or DMT? Or is this exclusive only to mushrooms, and only to that specific strain?

In any case, if anyone feels particularly under the weather and needs to just talk to someone and vent a bit, know that I am always available and happy to take some of that heavy load. I've bore it and I know how difficult it can get. I almost took my own life twice in the past, and both times what saved me was the comforting, awakening hug of LSD.

I'm here for you if you need support.

Love & Light

Thank you for you input. I've tried every classical psychedelic and none of them make me think of suicide; it's specifically GT that surfaced this. With Amazon, I get a relaxed and aphrodisiac feeling at a low dose (about 5 pins) and with Ecuador the visuals are insane at high doses. I'm not saying that you're wrong and that GT absolutely will make one think of suicide, but from my experience every strain of cubensis has a particular efffect. It reminds me of how Cannabis can have different effects based on the strain, but the species is the same.

How was set and setting?

I haven't had thoughts of suicide come into a trip but they have gone to some dark places. In these cases, set and setting was definitely a factor. Either in terms of environment or in terms of general mindset at the time.

I was at home, in a good mood. Back then, I smoked a bunch of weed that I didn't grow myself. That could have contributed to it, but I find it odd that these feelings never come up with any other strain I've experienced or any other entheogen.

There's so many possibilities why this could happen.

Obviously many set and setting related - psychedelics can bring stuff to the front that had not yet surfaced to consciousness before. Also, did you know about that story of your friend before you had your tea? Were you alone or were other people present?

Another possibility imo is the source of the shrooms. This is a bit woowoo, but i do believe that the grower's spirit is interacting with the mushrooms while they're alive, and i wouldn't be surprised if strong emotions could kinda be imprinted on them.

It's funny you mention that, because in the deems I extract, the cannabis I grow, and the mushrooms I grow, I tell people a part of me is in the final product. It's a whimsical reason, but that doesn't mean it's not the case.

I have thought about suicide in a complex combination of ways in many experiences. Granted, I've had mental health struggles most of my life. I find it to be simply something to observe. It can teach you a lot when paying proper attention. This was a while ago, but something like this came up in an LSD experience.

Also, it's mushrooms. They like being weird in ways that can be hard, scary, painful, etc. I sometimes (and sometimes often) experience visuals with mushrooms that while fascinating, can be pretty f'ed up and challenging. Nature of the game.

How have you felt since? Made any changes in the "usual" world after your experience?

One love

You're right, there are many possibilities.

Before this, during my teen years I had thoughts of suicide. Before trying mushrooms for the first time I was depressed for quite a while; however, with that being said, that night before I drank the tea I was in a fine state of mind. I did not know the story about my friend before my first experience with GT. I think he was picking up on things... he's good at that. During my experience with GT, I was alone. Before cultivating mushrooms, I had done LSD several times.

The first time I tried mushrooms it was a lesson that mushrooms and LSD are two totally different beasts. I find LSD to be more recreational, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. In fact, I prefer mushrooms.



I consider psilocybin/psilocin to be my medicine. Unfortunately, I haven't taken my medicine in quite a while. When it comes to changes, since then I've tried to make many friends and lovers, but it doesn't work out for some reason... I'm not so sure if it's me or them... I think it's time to move far away from where I currently live. Other than that, the only change I made was the strains I was using; Amazon with harmalas is a God-send to me, and with that being said I don't believe in a God. Until I can safely grow mushrooms again, I think I'll stick with mescaline and DMT.

My experience is that mushrooms are more of an amplifier than DMT, which is the only other psychedelic I've tried. My mush happen to be GT but I haven't tried other strains.

Mushrooms trips very easily get dark and loopy, although self harm is never the conclusion. It's always along the lines of "I gotta start working twice as hard in life cause I'm having a real bad time right now and it's my fault".

Mind you I haven't been suicidal / depressed for probably a year now. I thank God for that every day. Life does get better when you change the way you look at the world. What you surround yourself with also matters. I've made the difficult realization that one of my friends, whom I genuinely love, is simply a toxic person. You know a person is toxic when they always bring the darkness out of you, and you leave them feeling worse than when you met them that day. Sometimes the best thing to do is to make some distance for a while...

To think about death during a psychedelic experience is not so strange. Psychedelics are confronting, and death is inevitably a part of living.
Psychedelics have very often confronted me with my own vulnerability. Both physically and mentally.
A consequence of being confronted with death and vulnerability, as a thinking being, is that we are also confronted with the possibility to take our own lives.

That is just a scary thought. I think every person will have this realisation at some point in his life. You don't need to be suïcidal to just have these thoughts about the mere possibility. But it is still a scary experience to become aware of it. As any confrontation with death probably is.

A thing with psychedelics is though, that if you start fighting intrusive or scary thoughts, they become more powerfull.

It may have been the case that, because you have had suïcidal thoughts before in your life, these thoughts about death are a little more disturbing to you, than they tend to be for many other people, and that you have an instinctive response to want to block these thoughts out.
So then you instinctively started fighting them and therefore they became more powerfull.

The only other species I have is Mexicana, which I recently bought. Any side effects with that? I can see in pictures that the stem is much less meaty, as are the caps. I can't wait to cultivate it.

Teonanacatl

I'm not so sure if that's a strain name...

Forgive me for perhaps sounding flippant on a delicate subject but....fungi thrive on dead organic matter right....so...maybe they were hungry? Not completely unfair either, considering the message was received after consuming their kind.

Some fungi take control of an insects brain and drives it towards the desired outcome. I'm sure we've all seen this. I'm not saying the mushroom is evil or anything. But, different personalities may exist and different desires or instincts may surface in a lifeform that has dominated this planet for longer than we can even imagine accurately.

Long story short: We dont have to follow the orders of a mushroom if we dont want to.

I have to say I would be doubtful it has anything to do with the GT specifically. Whatever effects are attributed to different cultivars (strains) would most likely be due to different concentrations of different alkaloids. However, even within one cultivar these values can vary quite a bit so one person's GT may have a fairly different profile than someone else's.

I would agree with what others have said in that mushrooms bring out the truths that you might suppress. Something you know to be true, but you consciously convince yourself otherwise. While it may not be a pleasant truth, I do hope it helped push you to a better place.

For me as I've continued to get more experience with various substances I've realized that all the subconscious feelings you have about a substance/trip, save maybe a little nervousness, always finds a way to come back. For me this has led to many experiences I could've done without, but we all move forward. So this could manifest from where/who you get them from, thoughts you have before, or whatever else. Nowadays I've gotten a lot better at listening to my intuition with such powerful substances, and while it can sometimes be annoying or frustrating, in the end it's always turned out to be the right choice.