What is Macrodosing?
While microdosing is sub-perceptual, macrodosing opens our eyes, hearts, and souls in completely new ways. Macrodosing is consuming higher amounts of psilocybin mushrooms that range from low to heroic doses.
While it can be incredibly profound and healing it can also offer challenging moments as well. Being mindfully prepared for the experience can help make the difference between an uncomfortable trip and the journey of a lifetime.
We’ve put together this guide to help you prepare for, journey through, & integrate your psilocybin mushroom experience. We’ve included tips on dosage, preparation, session expectations, and the 7Ss of mindful journeying.
Setting Intention
Before journeying with higher doses of psilocybin, we should get clear on our intentions. This helps us to stay aligned during our session, brings us back into focus, can create more peace and clarity, and helps us maximize the benefits of our journey.
Setting intention roots us in our “why” and can act as an internal compass for helping to guide and direct our journey. Intention is not expectation but it can be here to point us in the right direction. Think of it like a compass, and if you ever feel like you are off your path in your journey, this can point you towards it. Treat it like a mantra that helps to guide you through.
An example of an intention could be “teach me about fear” or “help me find my strength.”
The 7 S's
The 7 S’s of psychedelics refers to proper preparedness and integration tools that have been compiled and used by the psychedelic community.
This helps us condense and get clear on some important steps as we get ready to trip.
Set & Setting
Before journeying with higher doses of psilocybin, we should get clear on our intentions. This helps us to stay aligned during our session, brings us back into focus, can create more peace and clarity, and helps us maximize the benefits of our journey.
Setting intention roots us in our “why” and can act as an internal compass for helping to guide and direct our journey. Intention is not expectation but it can be here to point us in the right direction. Think of it like a compass, and if you ever feel like you are off your path in your journey, this can point you towards it. Treat it like a mantra that helps to guide you through.
An example of an intention could be “teach me about fear” or “help me find my strength.”
Set
Set refers to our inner landscape, our mood, our beliefs, our personalities, perceptions, and so on. (sleep, hydration, food, nourishment)
Things to consider with Set:
Be aware of all of these factors, including sleep, hydration, food, nourishment.) Do you have the proper reserves to take a trip? Also, be mindful of if there is any situation or emotion that you are trying to “escape.” Mushrooms have a way of bringing these into focus for us and part of the healing journey is to move through them rather than away from them. If you are not feeling ready to process in such a manner, perhaps other forms of therapeutic support could be more beneficial at this time.
Setting
Setting refers to our external environment where we are, who we are with, the music in the background, the lighting, our level of physical comfort, as well as external forces that aren’t immediately visible but very much present including the present stigmas surrounding psychedelic substances.
Things to consider / gather when Setting up your space:
● Lights
● Pillows, blankets, comfies
● Clean and clear of clutter with clear access to bathroom
● Different spaces for changing scenery
● Relics, crystals, grounding comforts
● Have a journal handy for taking notes of insights
● Tapestries, patterns, fluffies, and flow toys
● Music – This is another massively influential way of guiding your experience.
Spend some time setting up your playlists. Be prepared with backups.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: If you feel called to journey outside of the home, be prepared in advance with all your needs. Make sure someone knows where you are.
Substance
Substance is what we’re taking.
It can refer to the mushroom strain, sourcing, potency, dosage, preparation & ethics. You should always be able to communicate and ask questions directly with the cultivator and we suggest that you only source from those willing to take their own medicine.
Dosage
Dosage refers to how much material you are taking. We recommend working with dried material and always using a scale. Below are some common doses and what to expect with them. We also recommend waiting at least 2 hours before “boosting” with any more as to not end up having taken more than you were prepared to handle. We recommend going low and slow. Get to know the medicine first and gradually increase your dosage for subsequent journeys. 1-2g is a good place to start.
Microdose: 50mg – .5g sub perceptual, safe for anytime use, still fully present, and often sociable, however explore solo before socially
Low dose: .5g-2g however up until 1g is more light, here we’re feeling a warm glow at this point. 1-2 g is a “common dose” This is getting into the “trips” you’re likely used to hearing about. Consistent accentuation of senses, enhanced visuals, deep thinking, and nice body high.
Moderate dose: interactive thought patterns, visual and auditory hallucinations, diminishing ego, heightened sense of self, perspective changes
High: This dose should especially be done under supervision and with deep intention and preparation for transcendental thought or out of body experiences. You can expect fractals and sacred hallucinations, time and space distortion, and ego dissolution.
Preparation
There are many ways to prepare your mushrooms but here are a handful of the most well-known. These preparations can be used with the dosage amounts above, and suggested with dry materials and always with a scale.
Whole – Bottom’s up! This method involves chewing whole mushrooms or mushroom powder. Mushrooms have an earthy taste and can be a bit fibrous. Sometimes this method can lead to a bit more tummy upset.
Tea – This method involved steeping mushroom powder in hot water for 15-20 minutes and then drinking the whole concoction without straining. This method can be a bit gentler on the tummy with a very slightly quicker onset.
Chocolate or edibles – Perhaps the most tasty option. This involves putting mushrooms inside chocolate or on food. An important note here is that you don’t involve the mushrooms in the actual cooking process but rather add at the end. Such as placing on top of a fully cooked pizza.
Lemon Tek – This process involved soaking the mushroom powder in lemon juice for 15-20 minutes. This helps to speed up the process of “digesting” the mushrooms as lemon juice mimics the ph levels of out stomachs. This can lead to less tummy discomfort and a quicker & stronger onset. *Not recommended for first time.
Some notes on Preparing your mushrooms:
● How all of these affect you will also depend on biological & emotional factors.
● Denial of effects can get in the way of us “feeling it”
● We tend to absorb the medicine faster on an empty stomach.
● Rule of thumb for any preparation is that more surface area = easier and faster onset.
Sitter
A trip sitter is a trusted sober person who holds space for someone under the influence of psychedelics. Holding space means to be present and supportive without trying to interfere with the experience. They are here to be grounding and nurturing, not coaching or guiding.
Having this level of support can offer the tripper the opportunity to release deeper into the experience which can help to open them up to receiving more insights and can assist them in having an overall pleasant journey.
Some ways they can help are offering water or nourishment, adjusting lights or music, helping tripper to the bathroom, bringing them tissues, offering grounding touch is consent is given in advance, keep them safe, offer affirming words if needed, help to journal notes for the tripper, support through difficult moments, be a shoulder to cry on, making a post-journey meal, and any other needs that arise. Sometimes those journeying can’t quite find their words, try to be attentive. Trip sitters can offer empathy, smiles, and eye contact while communicating with the journeying.
DON’TS AS A TRIP SITTER
● Don’t avoid your own needs. Your discomfort would be felt by the tripper. Eat, use the restroom, stretch etc.
● Bring a book or other non-phone activity that you enjoy
● Make sure to not speak to tripper in a condescending way or like a child. Keep communication light but speak as you normally would.
● Do not ask the tripper questions.
● Don’t make a big deal about something if it happens. Being a trip sitter or having a trip sitter is such a beautiful experience and an honor. It gives the person tripping the opportunity to feel entirely held and supported and the one sitting the honor of holding space for someone’s healing. It is a journey of growth for both involved. Overall calm, supportive, present, loving trip sitters are the best trip sitters.
Session
Session refers to the moment of the journey from start to finish. An average journey lasts 4-6 hours, however the afterglow can last for days or weeks.
Here’s a typical timeline for a mushroom journey:
● Ingesting the Psychedelic – This is the moment you take the mushroom.
● Onset around 30 minutes – At this point you may begin to feel warmth, heaviness, an opening of the heart & mind, light visuals (depending on dose,) and an onset of other bodily & cognitive sensations.
● Rising / Peak 1-2 hours –The peak of the psychedelic experience when all affects of the mushrooms are present.
● The Gentle Glide – This is the period of riding the waves of the journey. Active visuals may be present depending on dosage, warm or tingly body sensations, past healing work, stories and anecdotes or dreams arise.
● The End of the Formal Session – A softening or cessation of all sensations of the journey. Returning to self.
● Afterglow / Sparkle period – This is after the formal session has ended. Tripper may have open heartedness, returned hunger, more ability to verbally communicate and may still be sensitive. A time for being gentle, nourishing ourselves, and beginning to slowly integrate the experience.
Some notes on what to expect from your session:
– Be gentle with yourself during the afterglow and integration period. It’s a sensitive time of awareness and connection.
– Try to have a day off-work or major tasks the day after your journey for processing and integrating your experience.
– Shifts in psychological symptoms of heightened creativity can last days or weeks.
– Average = peak at one hour with 4-6 hours total duration.
Mid-Journey Tools
These are some valuable tools to carry into your journey. They can help guide us into pleasant states and support us through difficult ones. Embracing is the key to finding transcending and gaining access to what is on the other side.
– Breathe: Breath grounds us here, in this moment. If at any point you feel too far out of body or overwhelmed by the experience, you can always return to your breath. It is your anchor.
– Intention: Setting intention roots us in our “why” and can act as an internal compass for helping to guide and direct our journey. If you ever feel like you are off your path in your journey, this can point you towards it. Treat it like a mantra that helps to guide you through.
– Music: Music is a journey in and of iteself. How you curate your music can bring you back to center or help induce various states of being throughout your journey.
– Support System (Sitter): Trip sitters are the BEST! Having the proper support can turn a challenging trip into a transformative one.
Things to remember while journeying:
TRUST (in self, environment, sitters)
LET GO (to the psychedelic experience and don’t try to control, resist, or direct it
BE OPEN (to all experiences, thoughts, memories and sensations, even if they’re weird or unpleasant.)
Don’t run away, run inward – Rumi
Spirituality
The development of rituals for your trip can help to support your journey and open you up to the possibility of mystical experiences. It shows respect and reverence for the medicine and connects you with your intention and higher power.
Regardless of your religion (or lack of,) mushrooms can be an incredibly spiritual opportunity and can deepen us into our own spirituality or bring it about in ways that we hadn’t yet connected with. Being open to what may arise while creating a ritual setting helps to support this aspect of journeying with these sacred plants.
There is no one way for your rituals to look but rather what feels most aligned for you. You may find yourself feeling more connected to Spirit, Source, God/Goddess/Goddex, The Universe/Cosmos, Aliens, or any other Dieties / Beings / Energies that resonate with you during and after your trip.
While integrating of your experience, it’s important to cultivate these connections and work to understand why it is that they arose and what it can mean for you as an individual.
Here are some ways you can infuse spirituality into your ceremony:
● Prayer
● Ceremony
● Cleansing
● Connecting with higher power
● Relics, statues, crystals
● Divination cards, tarot, oracles
● Develop rituals including preparing the mushrooms.
● Journaling about the experience
In medicine ceremonies, one of the most potent things that Shamans offer is the ritual space and the container they hold for those journeying. You can create your own sacred container and ceremony format to hold yourself through your trip. The best shamans say that we are our own healers, they are just here to hold space for our healing. The mushrooms are the teachers.
Situation / Integration
“The journey really begins once you come back to earth”
The effects of your trip last far beyond the moment you stop “tripping.” For days to weeks after you sit with mushrooms, the afterglow period offers softened psychological symptoms, feelings of open-heartedness and connectedness, boosted creativity and insightful thinking, and leaves our minds in a malleable state, ripe for making lasting change.
That is, if you integrate mindfully.
Integration is what looks and feel right to YOU. but here are some examples,
● looking over any notes and journaling about your experience
● reflecting on insights and creating action steps for positive change
● time spend in nature and quiet reflection
● having a conversation with your trip sitter, friend, coach, or therapist
● Discussing what went right and what could have gone better from your experience and planning for future journeys
What’s most important is that you take the following days to two weeks after your journey to reflect and spend time applying your insights to your life. This means mindfully shifting habits or taking any other actions that may have arisen from your experience.
When it comes to considering when to trip again, there is no RIGHT or WRONG amount of time to take in between doses, what’s important is that you’ve taken the time to properly integrate your experience, and the best judge of that time frame is you.
We hope that this information can be helpful to you on your journey.
Have a nice trip!
There is so much floating around about whether or not SSRIs are safe to take with mushrooms. We have yet to find an account of someone on SSRIs having an acute episode of Serotonin Syndrome (the most alarming possible side effects of combining SSRIs with Psilocybin.) While we would suggest speaking to your personal health care provider, due to the nature of the more recent legalization of psilocybin mushrooms, oftentimes they are not properly trained on addressing these types of questions.
What we can speak to is that because these to different substances both work on the serotonin reserves in our brains, using both simultaneously will most likely result in experiencing muted effects of the mushrooms.
We do not directly promote using both SSRIs simultaneously with mushrooms however we don’t firmly warn against it either. We always encourage curiosity and hope that your own journey of research will provide enough for you to feel comfortable one way or the other.
