Mushroom have become an ally for me over the last few years. I use them a few times a year to help clear any mental baggage I'm carrying around. Yesterday was a typical mushroom experience. I woke up at 4:30 am and began preparing tea. I like to wake up early on Sat/Sun while my wife sleeps in. By the time she wakes up at 10:00 am or so I'm completely reset and in a totally positive frame of mind. This time I prepared a small 3.5 grams dose of tea from a friends batch of mushrooms that have been sampled several times time.

I went to the couch and did my normal ritual. I vaporized a little bit of Haze and then drank my tea in a 5 minute period. 30 minutes later the visuals started coming, but I noticed that they started coming really hard and fast....and the pattern was the same pattern I ALWAYS see on DMT. Strange I thought. Then I started shivering something fierce. I couldn't stop shivering and I had a lot of blankets covering myself. It this point it is about 45 minutes after ingestion when all of a sudden a giant wave of panic came over me. This has NEVER happened to me. I decided to err on the side of caution and went and woke my wife up and got back in bed with her. For the next 2 hours I woudl go through intense waves of panic. When the panic would subside I'd be in a perfectly normal calm mushroom headspace...about normal for 3.5 grams. But then the panic attack wave would come again and I would catapulted into a DMT headspace. All this would probably have been fine except my heart rate was beating insanely fast, I was shivering uncntrollably from head to toe the whole time. It wasn't until 3 hours ofter ingestion before intense shivering and panic attacks started to subside...then it was pure bliss for the next three hours followed by an amazing rest of the day...just a nice peaceful easy feelign with they world...the reason I take them.

I'd like to note that this was the first mushroom trip since I've done DMT...and my last DMT trip was over a month ago. I don't do these compounds often...

So what happened? Well I have a few explanation.

1) Every other time we've taken these shrooms (Burma strain cubensis) they have been powdered and capsulated to form standardized gel caps. This time I used the actual mushrooms to make the tea. It could simply be that one of the mushrooms was way more potent than the others.

Another possibility is that there are other alkaloids in these mushrooms. My wife has done shrooms with me 5 times....we've used two strains of shrooms. On one strain she has had absolutely amazing times (twice). On the Burma strain she has intense cramping and panic attacks (3 times). When I say intense cramping I mean she is in complete agony for hours...obviously this ruins the experience for her. Another friend has a similar but milder reaction to the Burma's. Could it be that the Burma's have a trace alkaloid that when present in high enough concentrations causes panic attacks? Over the years I've probably done shrooms 50+ times...mostly from wild picked shrooms and have NEVER had anything resembling a panic attack. I've been scared and fearful, but not to the point of having shortness of breath. Maybe I have a higher tolerance for this trace alkaloid and didn't experience the panic when my wife did...but when I did non standardized shrooms I received enough to push my over the edge?

I know some people think mushroom only have 4-hydroxylated tryptamines, but I personally don't believe this. Every mushroom strain, and species has it's own unique genetic code and thus it's own unique set of enzymes. It' certainly in the realm of possibility that sometimes these trace alkaloids get over expressed just as sometimes psilocin is over expressed?

2) Is it possible that DMT has opened up a new channel in me brain thus allowing me to access the same headspace while in mushrooms?

3) Has DMT made it so that I need very little tryptamines now? I get off on 20 mgs of DMT pretty well...and apparently 3.5 grams is enough to push me over the edge.

At this point I'm planning to give the Burma's another shot in a very small dose..1 gram perhaps to see how the shoe fits. In the mean time I have a pretty good lead on some Panaeolus Tropicalis. I think the shrooms that my wife had a good time on were some sort of panaeolus, but we won't ever be sure.

I know I've read a few other reports on here about DMT tainted shroom trips...but what the hell was the panic attack? I've eaten 5 grams of the same strain and had a phenomenal time...

A quick response here,

I'm going to go with number 2, because I've seen with myself and others on this board that once you breakthrough, your "psychedelic experience" thereafter is modified by the DMT headspace you've just introduced yourself too. After my first breakthrough, I've been able to east more mushrooms at once without going too far into the rabbit hole. But typically before DMT, 1.5g would get me where I want and an 1/8 would send me to mushroom hyperspace. Now an eighth can go down no problem and sometimes I'm still debating more haha. I think it's awesome now though because I feel high all the time now as a trade off.

peace and love

Hey man,

A few points...I have experience taking dried powdered mushrooms and them whole when fresh and in tea. I found taking them when fresh or as tea MARKEDLY more potent than when taking them powdered in gel caps. They take longer to hit you this way and are kind have a more slow release feeling to them which makes the experience a bit more relaxed. When taking them fresh or as tea, I find mushrooms to be both more powerful, and to come on harder and faster like you describe. Then you've got factors like flush variations in potency...even the same strain can vary in its potency markedly throughout different flushes.

Also, I strongly suggest you try more species. The species you work with can have a profound effect on the experience. For example, my favourite species (of those I have encountered) by far is Copelandia/Panaeolus cyanescens. This produces a distinct and beautiful mind state, very lucid, clear, crystalline and visionary. I always feel this distinct signature every time I use them. Cubensis mushrooms, while having had many fantastic experiences with these, I found foggier, muddier with less clarity and colours. I suspect there may be more mycotoxins present in there compared to other species. Also when using cubensis, the required doses tend to be higher than other species, so the actual quantity of mushroom material ingested may cause cramping, as it seems like your gut doesn't find it the easiest stuff to process. Liberty caps, Psilocybe semilanceata, are another good species, especially if you can pick them yourself. In the future I would also like go experience. Psilocybe, cyanescens, P. azurescens and P. mexicana.

And lastly, I think DMT use can and dose the effect subsequent mushroom trips in some way. Mushrooms at sufficient dose put me in a very DMT like headspace, with the closed eye visuals very similar indeed. I also have friends who use to journey well with mushrooms, but since DMT have found high dose trips to be mentally dark in nature, I have not experienced this however. So a number of these different factors here could be contributing.

All the best for future explorations.

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like you are having an opposite effect where you need more shrooms. I'm in the exact opposite. There were times that I felt the 3.5 grams was pushing me to a level 5 trip...and it would have been awesome if not for the body load and panic.

I think you are right about the new head space. It makes sense really. I mean our brains are just neural pathways that get strengthened by experiences. Strongly emotional experiences firm up new connections faster. So it makes sense that if you have a very profound experience on DMT that it could make those pathways more accessible. I may be able to give them another shot next weekend (much smaller dose). If I get the chance I'll report back how the very small dose (a gram works out).

That's what I'm hoping as well. These Burma's always have a dark side to them before the light. I grew up in the deep south and went shrooming a lot as a teen. I never remember mushrooms having a dark quality to them until the Burma's...which are mostly what I've had over the last couple of years. I'm hoping the connection for that pan trops comes through because I've heard others claim they are a totally different experience. Also on that same line of thinking people that have taken pure psilocybin don't typically report a 'darkness'. I think it's a combination of accessing a new DMT headspace, but I also think this strain has some mycotoxins in them that some people are very sensitive to. My wife can't eat these mushrooms without intense discomfort...even very small doses. I've seen her eat an 8th of other shrooms and have in her words the best time of her life. All shrooms are not the same...I don't care what others say. Set and setting is huge, but the compounds present in the shrooms also play a very large role it the experience.

No I would definitely agree that different mushroom species vary DISTINCTLY in character, and I have experience with cubensis, liberty caps and Copelandia mushrooms on numerous occasions in a variety of settings. Set and setting is definitely a very important factor but it's not the whole story, at all. Each species for me brings its own distinct signature to the experience, with the latter two being preferable for me. I'm not going to go into different strains of the same species, I'm sure differences could arise there but I don't want to go down that path now.

On an interesting note, the guy who taught me how to grow Copelandia mushrooms really didn't like cubensis mushrooms, he found them really and consistently dark and unpleasant in character, and yet Copelandia mushrooms are one of his favourite things going! So I think there's something there. I hope you manage to get hold of some Panaeolus tropicalis and are able to compare.

Hey I just find an Analytical Toxicology paper that talks about the presence of phenethylamine in some species of psilocybe mushrooms.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9491968

I'm going to double post this as I want to keep the information in this thread as I learn more, but I also think this has a place in the mushroom section as well.

Wow, very interesting, thanks for sharing!