Category Archives: quantity

depression, health, microdosing, mushrooms, quantity

i’ve heard it said before…

i’ve heard it said before that depression is like a weight, but i never really felt like that was true for me. it felt like a gloomy presence which infected everything, but not, specifically, as a “weight”… until today, the 6th day since i microdosed. i took 750mg this morning at 09:45 and proceeded to have one of the most bizarre trips i have ever had.

despite the outdoor temperature climbing, i got very cold, to the point where i put on a hoodie and closed it around my face to ward off chills. then i got very sleepy, so i took a nap for a couple of hours. when i got up i felt straight enough to drive to the place where i bought some storage media, and then i decided, on the spur of the moment, to go “out for a drive”…

and that’s when i realised: depression IS like a weight: it gets a little bit heavier, imperceptably, every minute of every hour of every day, until i go around wondering (like i was, only yesterday) how i don’t know i have the energy to do things until i’m actually doing them, only to be made more tired and exhausted by the things that i was doing that i didn’t know i had the energy to do, and doing things (like i did yesterday) like going to bed at 19:30 because i was so exhausted… and the only respite i seem to have is when i take enough mushrooms to be able to perceive that it is all an illusion. it was around this time last year that i had a profound, mushroom-induced brush with reality, and i really haven’t done anything BUT microdoses since then.

microdosing keeps the weight from getting too unbearable, but it still accumulates. i need regular macrodoses, as well, to keep things from getting too overwhelming.

because too much whelm is never a good thing for anyone. 😉

medication, microdosing, mushrooms, pictures, quantity

🍄 capsule update

so i’m going to try a smaller dose for the next 100. i’ve learned a little more about how to make capsules more uniform, and i decided to make 200 milligram doses, rather than the (nominally) 250 milligram doses i’ve been taking. a “microdose”, by definition, is “subperceptual”, and, for the most part these are, but every now and then i get a little twinge of psychedelic-ness, and i KNOW that as little as 50 mg will affect my mood, so i figured why not go lower, just to see what happens.

turns out using a sieve to sift the powdered mushroom filters out the pieces that are big enough to cause problems with consistency, and makes it easier to re-powderise the remainder. i was able to get 100 capsules that range from 190 mg to 210 mg, compared to my last 100, unsifted “250 mg” doses, which were anywhere from 190 mg to 270 mg. i’ll take a 20% margin, but 80% is pretty close to unsatisfactory. 😉

i’m still about halfway through the 250 mg doses, but i’ve got the next 100 doses all ready, plus around another ounce or so of powdered mushrooms, and “30 gram” “ounce” of unpowdered mushrooms…

231106 capsule making in progress
231106 capsule making in progress
231106 capsule making results
231106 capsule making results
medication, mushrooms, quantity

aw, yeah!!!

so, i tried measuring .01 grams of mushrooms, and it wouldn’t go, because the scale isn’t that accurate…

but now i have a MILLIGRAM scale, which measures down to .001 gram!

i wonder how this is going to work? i presume that i wait a couple of days, and then, instead of taking my .25 gram dose, i’ll measure out and take a .01 gram dose, and then wait a couple of days and take a .005 gram dose…

at this point, i’m going to wager that i’ll perceive something…

i’ve also been hearing that “microdosing is a placebo” and “there is minimal evidence to support microdosing”… but i can’t confirm who has been saying these things, so at this point they’re just propaganda, as far as i’m concerned.

because i now have a milligram scale, i can assess whether or not i’m actually taking .25 gram doses… average of 5 random capsules tested, range between 190 mg, and 270 mg, is 230 mg… which is REASONABLY close, given the procedure and methods used… not TERRIFICALLY close… and the procedure and methods used were haphazard, at best… 😉

medication, mushrooms, quantity

🍄 capsule update

2 Comments

i got an actual capsule-making machine, capable of making 100 0-sized capsules at a shot. i tried it out, and the resulting capsules are between .31 and .36 grams, which is close enough to call them .25 gram doses — although, out of 25 grams of material, i had around 2 grams left, which i couldn’t insert into the capsules because they were already as full as i could make them… uh, lessee… instead of being .25 gram doses, they are .23 grams… as i said, close enough…

i haven’t taken mushrooms since tuesday (three days), and i’ve been “weaning off” buprprion since wednesday. according to my mood-tracking app, my mood has been somewhere between “irritable” and “adequate” with occasional diversions into “meh”… which is okay, considering.

.5 g 🍄 @ 1530

medication, mushrooms, quantity

mushroom 🍄 quantity

i went two days without microdosing, and at the end of the second day (yesterday), i noticed a distinct and sudden change in my mood, from more-or-less content, easy-going, and accepting, to sour, disagreeable, snappy and depressed. 😒

so, this morning (still sour and depressed), i made up five .25g capsules, one of which i took immediately (at 0800), and the rest i plan on taking every OTHER day, to see if that evens out my mood a little more.

at the recommendation of my counselor, i also installed a mood-tracking app on my phone. i’m still getting the hang of it, but — maybe — it will help figure out exactly how much i can take without overdoing it.

ETA: heh… listen to me talking about “overdoing” mushrooms… as though there is ANY SUCH THING as too many mushrooms… 🤣

medication, mushrooms, quantity

tea

i forgot how much i like mushroom tea…

i took “some” mushrooms, today… “some” meaning “measured by eye, approximately, somewhere between a half gram and a gram, maybe a little more”. i took them around four… or, rather, 16:00… and it’s currently almost 21:00 and i still definitely feel it, but, because of the fact that i made tea this time, it has struck me completely differently. i spent at least three hours in the back yard, in the hammock, alternately sleeping, meditating, and laughing at the squirrel, who had been used to climbing up the blueberry bush and launching himself over to the suet feeder, where he had been gorging himself… so i moved the suet feeder about 6 inches further away from the blueberry bush, and, now, the squirrel launches off the bush and hits the squirrel baffle, making a lovely “clang”… 🤣 EVERY! SINGLE! FUCKING! TIME! 🤣🤣🤣

then i sat on the front porch while the sprinkler was going in the front yard… then i came in and listened to an album of mash ups with moe, while she edited her book… and i think i’m going to bed soonishly…

ah, my “don’t give a fuck pill” comes in convenient tea form, as well. 😉

medication, mushrooms, quantity

impending OCF 🍄 post

i am on the verge of deciding that i am going to “microdose” mushrooms at OCF: .25 grams EVERY DAY for the period of time i am there, to get more control of my mood… i have been feeling TREMENDOUSLY depressed, and anxious about going, despite the fact that i also know that OCF has been one of my all-time favourite things, in the past, and i’m afraid the depression and anxiety are going to control my actions… so, if i take .25 grams of mushrooms every day, it will give me the “twinkle” that i desire, and reduce my depression and anxiety, without making it so that i can’t function as a part of a group which has been assigned to do two performances a day for three days.

i may take a few extra 1 gram capsules to spread around, or to eat myself, if i’m feeling adventuresome… 😈

medication, mushrooms, quantity

🍄 hmmm…

i tried to measure out .01 gram of mushrooms. it wouldn’t go. i tried measuring .05 gram, and that worked… in the process of reducing the measure, i observed the scale registering .04 gram, momentarily, but i get the very strong impression that my electronic scale (which i bought through amazon) won’t do the trick. i’ve got an old triple-beam scientific scale, out in the garage, that, it’s my recollection, will measure down to .001 gram, but the last time i used it (which was shortly after we first moved in to our OLD house, i.e. close to 20 years ago), i recall having to put a small coil of wire that weighed a tenth of a gram, on the platten to get it to balance correctly… but it’s an analogue scale, so there’s pretty much nothing that can go wrong, apart from corrosion and dust…

on the other hand, i could start titrating up, starting at 1 gram, just to keep things “scientific”… 😉 and to satisfy my desire for a REAL trip… 😉😉 i’ve actually got enough that i could take 5 or 10 grams without too much difficulty… unfortunately, my experience leads me to believe that such an event would be a multi-day process, and, at this point, there’s not an awful lot that would prevent me from doing things for which i might get in trouble during a multi-day trip, which is NOT my goal. 😉😉😉😉

enlightenment, medication, mushrooms, quantity

i wonder if this is what everyone has been looking for…

today i took 1g (= two 00 capsules) and went for a walk with rye (our oldest dog). while i was out, i experienced a couple of things i have never experienced before. the first was, about halfway through the walk, i decided that i really wanted to be at home, taking a nap, instead of floating around deep in the forest.

ordinarily, when i have taken mushrooms, the LAST thing on my mind is taking a nap…

so, instead of going forwards deeper into the forest, i went back, and on the way i felt, distinctly, a couple of times, like i have in the past, just prior to passing out… only i didn’t pass out (if i had passed out, it turned out that there was an older couple, with a couple of yappy dogs, that would have found me within a few minutes), but, instead, i experienced a distinct “raising up” and “seperation” of my consciousness, to a point a little behind, and about 5 feet above where my body was — i remember looking at the path ahead of me, which i had always thought was relatively level, and thinking that it looked a lot more down-hill than i remembered — and, because of the fact that i was walking with a dog, i experienced a distinctly odd sensation as my body walked along behind the dog, but i was not part of my body. i got the distinct impression that, as it were, my body was an “automaton” that i was, nominally, in control of, but “i” was not a part of that body.

i have read a fair amount about ego death, both positive and negative, but it has always been a lot more of a “view from the outside”, as i was never really certain what, ultimately, they were talking about. 😉

but this puts everything in an entirely new perspective: if “i” — who i think i am — is NOT my body, then what is it? who am “i”, if not my body? and if my body is not “myself”, then, apparently, regardless of what happens to my body, “i” will continue to exist… अहं ब्रह्मण्सि तत्त्वमसि — AHAM BRAHMANSI. TAT TVAM ASI — “I am God. That Thou Art.” 😉

it’s possible that i experienced nirvikalpa samadhi. ॐ🙏

the amusing part is that i have read stories of people taking higher and higher doses of psychedelics in their attempts to achieve this mythical “ego death”, but i seem to have done it with a controlled, 1 gram dose. 🤣

the whole experience lasted, maybe, 45 minutes… from the time i was crossing the creek, including meeting with the older couple. basically, until i got to my car, which brought me back into my body again. i want to go back there.

ॐ अरुणाछलिष्वरय नमः — AUM ARUNACHALESWARAYA NAMAH

and, i want to tell you, it was a REALLY interesting experience when the aforementioned older couple and their aforementioned yappy dogs came down the path… i — or rather, my body stood to the side and put a hand on my dog as they approached, with their yappy dogs getting yappier and more aggressive, to the point where they had to pick them up, and walked past me with snarling, snapping little curs (to which i, or rather “my body” said “don’t worry, i understand”), all the while “i” was high up in the air, behind my body, making it go through the motions and try not to appear as altered as i really was… 🤣

medication, mushrooms, quantity, snoose junction, trude

🍄

0.05g = ⅓ of a 0-size capsule
1200 ingested
1300 nothing. going for a walk.
1600 – after going up to the “yellow gate”* and getting my car stuck in ¾ of an inch of snow (🙄), i ended up going down to landsburg and walking down to the bridge. i DEFINITELY got the parts of the mushroom that were the most potent, this time (damn it! 😠), because, while i wasn’t inebriated, i was definitely feeling good… nothing visual, though. after walking to the bridge and back, i chanced upon a friendly bearded guy coming out of the security gate at landsburg crossing, so i asked him if there were public tours of the areas behind the “no trespassing” signs, with specific emphasis on trude and snoose junction. he gave me a physical address in north bend, and told me to inquire there… which is more information than i have gotten from internet in two years of hunting!

*the “yellow gate” is the “secret back entrance” to taylor mountain, but it’s still more snowy than my jikatabi like, and it’s up hill, which, along with getting my car stuck, just didn’t seem worth the effort… and i got my car unstuck, for which PRAISE GANESHA! 🐘

medication, mushrooms, quantity

🍄

0.10 g = ⅔ of a 0-size capsule
1530 ingested

i’m not expecting much in the way of sensations, but, judging by the previous encounters, we shall see.

1630 nothing. however, i am going for a walk.

around 1730 i noticed a definite change in my mood, but nothing else.

1830 nothing psychedelic visually or otherwise, but a definite change in my mood…

gawd DAMN it. 😠

medication, mushrooms, quantity

🍄

1 Comment

0.25g = 1 0 capsule
12:00 pm ingested
at 1:00 i noticed some yawning and a desire to pee
at 2:00 i noticed some twinkly edges around things, and had a strong desire to be somewhere other than in front of the computer, but i can resist for a while, because i also got 4 new CDs in the mail, and i’m working on transcribing them onto my cloud drive… yes, music takes priority over everything.
at 4:00 i’m still yawning, and i definitely feel elevated, but not necessarily high… unless i hold still for 30 seconds or more, then i can REALLY feel it. 😒

what i am learning from titrating like this is, basically, no matter how fine you grind it, any one 00 capsule, or one 0 capsule, is going to be VASTLY different from any other 00 or 0 capsule. 😒 NOT what i wanted to learn — primarily because i could have told you that before i started this experiment… 🤬