Amanita Muscaria: one seeker's observations [merged]

[fender]

I have a friend who has found several Amantia muscaria shrooms.
I helped identify them, so they are the real thing.
My question is how dangerous are these things really? I know that it does not contain psilocybin or psilocin, and have forgotten the active ingredient.
But I have read a few horror stories on these guys, and i also know that there is a very VERY deadly Amanita shroom dubed the "angel of death" which looks very similar to the Fly Agaric except it is all white (I have seen these first hands while mushroom hunting).
So I guess my reason for posting this is to find out a few experiences from the community, as I only have experience w/ psil. and lsd.

if they are north american...don't bother with them. if they are siberian native then feed em to a reindeer and drink it's piss.

In other words...just get your rocks off on psilly shrooms.

I had tons of em pop right here at my house (SE US) during the fall. I just let them be b/c after a cost/benefit analsyis i just didn't care anymore.

Peace
-AoA

[lsd_freak]

they're alright, dont eat them fresh or you'll be sick all day. cook them at 180 degrees until they are dry then eat them. and the active chemical is muscamole. No strain of them is that great, but the syberian is the strongest strain.

[nerve]

I've never done A. Muscarias.

Everything i've read has suggested the trip is not too be compared to psilly shrooms and, few that trip off the muscaria are eager too try it again, ever.

It's a trip that a lot of people want to experience but usually the one trip is enough to satisfy thier curiosity. The Siberian ones are supposed to be stronger but true Siberian amanita's only come from Siberia. North American variety works fine if prepared properly.

how would you describe the trip/effects??
i am most curious as they sound like pain to me

http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/amanitas_eff ects.shtml

ill go without

[fender]

Thanks for your input guys. My friend really wants to eat them, but I have been very sceptical about them.
And no they are not siberian. They were found in the good old U.S.A.
I don't know, I may end up trying them, but I am going to do a little research first.

do a LOT of research if i were you

Just use the skin of the cap. Dry in oven at about 150 - 200. 7 dried grams should make you feel 'drunk'.

Enjoy!

[fender]

They are already dry, as I brought them home and put them through my standerd tek. Fan dring to dessicant chamber.
I knew, through my limited research, that uncooked, or fresh aminaitas were not pleasent or safe, so I dried them.
So my new question is; how can I "just use the skin" after dried?
I have read for about an hour on erowid.com and I think I must try them atleast once, especially since I helped identify them.
Should I just make a tea of some sort, or powder the fellows and eat?
By the way CptnMaxMushroom, I have been around a while and have seen your site grow. I have ordered from you guys many times and am allways pleased. Keep up the good work! I recommend you to my fellow shroomers all the time.

[lsd_freak]

the trip is deffinately not comparible to psylicybin. Captain max said it right, you'll feel about drunk and that's about it. Some people experience visions and some people just experience a nice body high. They'r cool if they're free, but i wouldn't pay for them (again). I realy wouldn't even clasify the experience as a trip. Honestly, i got higher from 5 spoon fulls of nutmeg than from 7-8 grams of caps from the syberian strain (which is supposed to be the strongest).

i've done them 3 times-
they suck.

Can't you smoke them too?

[fender]

My friend and I tried the shrooms last night, and I was VERY disappointed.
We boiled ~ 20-30 grams of the dried fruit in water, and made a 'tea' from it.
We disgarded the flesh and split the tea 50/50.
After about an hour or so i felt a very severe stomach illness. So we smoked some weed. Did not help!
After about 2 hours of feeling nothing but stomach cramps, I first noticed an altering effect.
It wasn't like I was drunk, but there was a 'light headedness' about it.
My cramps soon left me but that strange feeling was about I ever got.
Maybe I did not take enough, but I do not plan on trying them again.

(Message edited by Fender on February 12, 2005)

There's a medicinal side to those, in light dosages, I'll try to find the link again.

I've read about the controversy surrounding the amanitas before and it seems that the peeple that take the time to learn how to cook with them properly have better experiences than the ones that munch em blind. Karls right too, I have seen a few sites that tout the amanitas as beneficial in many ways if taken daily at below threshhold doses. There's even some sort of cult website I found with a bunch of hippies dedicated to these mushies and they claim to have taken a dose with every meal for decades now.....don't know how much is bs but....that's the web for ya

[shrems]

yo i tripped on amanita pantherinas last night. it was rediculous! everyone on this board needs to try them. perhaps this species is just that much better than muscaria. i ate 5 grams, but they were not completely dry -- just barely moist. they are not like psillys in many ways -- mostly the lack of significant OEVs. but that's ok because the CEV's are that much better! i had the most insane trip of my life on the inside of my head. btw i have done psillys 2 dozen times and lsd one dozen. i got a straight-up mystical vision from the amanitas. it was almost entirely pleasant the whole time and i did not even feel nauseous for a second! and that is without any special preparation.

coming into the trip, i had the same negative impression of these shrooms as the posters of above me do. boy are they wrong! amanitas are the shit.

a complete trip report

straight off the bat, these shrooms kicked my ass. i rarely post here, let alone a long trip report, but my experience last night needs to be shared.

from all i had read about amanitas on the shroomery and on erowid, i was never interested in eating them. after all, more people have bad trips than good trips and many get quite sick. what really convinced me that amanitas suck was "food of the gods," in which terrence mckenna writes amanitas off as not in the same league as the other psychedelics. he claims they couldn't possibly be the true soma. with all due respect, i find it unbelievable that mckenna ever sampled quality specimens of the shrooms.

so when my buddy X tells me friday that he is going home for the weekend to trip on amanitas, i don't give it much thought. i warn him that he will be greatly disappointed as amanita trips are incomparable to cubensis trips and he would most likely become violently ill. fortunately, my words didn't discourage him, and he and 2 friends ate a whole bunch friday night. i believe X ate around 10 grams, not all at once, and one of his friends ate 10 also while his other friend ate over 14 grams. when i called X at 1 pm saturday (i forget he was home for the weekend and needed to borrow his guitar tuner) he answered and explained to me what happened. he was very strung out sounding and he told me his friend (the one who ate 14) had gone into a hypnotic trance in the night and was taken to the local hospital. i didn't ask many more questions b/c of my preconceptions about amanitas and wrote off X's trip as someting of a psychedelic misadventure. when i hung up i remember thinking to myself how little appetite i had for these crazy legal shrooms. i didn't want to have to eat an enormous dose just to trip and risk going to the hospital.

so sunday X gets back to campus and calls me up. he was very excited to show me the rest of his QP of amanitas, even though he knew that i wasn't interested. so over a cigarette, X tells me and my friends Y and Z about his trip and shows us his bag of fat caps with an occasional shriveled stem. the shrooms were fairly dry but not as dry as preserved cubensis. they were still a little flexible and moist. once we saw the shrooms in front of us and discussed our options for possibly eating them, X, Y, Z and myself became increasingly eager to consume some shrooms that night. i was extremely skeptical until i read this article: Shroomery - Amanita muscaria - A New Outlook . after i found that site, i decided that i definitely was up for giving amanitas a try.

around 10:30, the four of us plus M find ourselves in X's dorm room with mountain dew and potatoe chips and of course a big sack of amanitas. M, the latecomer, has shit to do the next day and is only up for 3 grams. the rest of us eat 5. they don't taste too bad at all.

once finished, we pick up a 20 bag of herb and Y rolls a peach philly.

we walk the 12 minutes or so to the big park nearby, and set up camp on a bench at the top of a tall hill, our favorite toke spot and one with a fantastic view of the city. we smoke the blunt, feel funny, and take a walk around the park. we make our way back to the dorms, and to M's room. M turns down the lights and puts on some good music. i get comfortable on the futon.

sometime after we come to M's room, the amanita intoxication begins to overpower my weed high. i feel a distinct psychedelic body buzz that seems to be the perfect (strong!) intensity. i begin to rant to X how impressed i am with the feeling and how glad i am he encouraged me to give the amanitas a try. as we sit around, i come up pretty quickly. soon i am seeing a strange sort of visual that i have never enountered before. basically, parts of my field of vision around my focal point were tripping out but not in the ordinary way i've found with shrooms and acid. instead of seeing distorted reality right before my eyes persistently, it is as though i see every frame of reality exactly as it is, but in between frames of real reality are inserted frames of distorted reality. cool. at this point i am feeling highly inebriated. my sense of balance is completely erratic and walking felt like a completely new sensation.

we head out of the dorms with another peach blunt. on the way out, we stop and talk to some drunk people in the ashtray. i am able to communicate and i manage to avoid freaking them out too bad. however, when a drunk girl raised her foot to mine (i am standing up, she is sitting down) like high-five stylee, my sense of balance decieves me. i almost kick X in the balls when i follow through with me foot behind me! fortunately, my mistake is quickly forgotten when, on the way out of the ashtray, Y is startled by someone calling out her name and falls completely on her ass! haha.

we walk down to a shady ghetto where there are few cars. my sense of time at this point is obliterated. we smoke the blunt and M (who only ate 3 grams) splits and heads back. the rest of us find ourselves in strange positions on the sidewalk and the alley (lying down on wet pavement) and spaced out completely. we zone in and out of reality for awhile. somehow i find that i've taken off my headphones and shoved them in my coat pocket. totally subconsciously, i twist the earphones into a huge knot inside the pocket. at some point i have an epiphany and realize that what i am doing to my headphones is totally counter-intuitive to the music i wanted to listen to. i pull the earphones out and realize they're totally fucked. i try for a couple minutes to untie them but i am only making things worse. finally i give up and hand them to X, who spends what seems like forever slowly unravelling the horrible knot. once it is unraveled, i let it dangle and see something totally unbelievable. because of the memory inherent to the headphone wires, when i let it go it looks like a beautiful piece of art, as the physics were mind-boggling without knowing how the wire came to be the way it was. i pocket the headphones and decide to sell them on ebay. lol. obviously at this point my mind is melted.

for whatever reason, i am talking far more than the others. i think this is because of the insane superpowers i was developing within my mind. basically, all of the CEV's i encounter are similar in specific ways. they all take place on a 3d stage that is indistinguishible from outer space and the universe at large. every visual has a clear nucleus right at the center of the universe. my perspective is generally focused on the nucleus but it comes in from all different angles and distances. for a long time, my visuals are limited to extremely colorful horizontal planes that extend into oblivion and intersect with one another at the nucleus. these visuals become more and more complex but remain extremely colorful and composed of horizontal planes. i also see OEVs that consisted of very faint patterns reminiscent of typical shroom and acid patterns yet less strong and vivid. the more exciting OEVs are the nearly invisible horizontal planes that formed above and parallel to the ground. in the light, they look like silk threads or like lasers through fog. very cool.


when i begin to peak, things get way more interesting. at some point in the alley with my eyes closed, in the universal CEV stage, i create by my own choice a world just like the earth. i am able to zoom in anywhere on the planet at light speed and then zoom out just as fast. on the walk back to the dorms, i play with my newfound abilities. i realize that i can create and destroy entire universes with no effort. this is nothing i've ever been able to do before, and i am flabbergasted. i try to create a macroverse out side of my universe stage, but cannot. when i find that my ability is limited only to the universe inside my head, and i cannot change the world i see when i open my eyes, i get kinda pissed and complain. i decide i need more power! hehe.

the 4 of us arrive in the lobby of my building and sit down. we are completely useless. after awhile, we decide what we need is to lie down somewhere safe, quiet, and dark, together. however, in order to get them into my building, where we could find an empty lounge to enjoy, i have to sign in X, who lives in a different dorm. this is ever more complicated because it is 2:30 am monday morning, and in order to sign in guests after 2 on weeknights, we are required to fill out extended guest forms. all this paperwork and i am beginning to peak!

fortunately, the security guard likes me and allows us into the building despite my inability to answer her simple questions or sign X in in a legible manner. my signature is a bizarre scribble. hehe.

once inside, we head from lounge to lounge on the elevator, looking for an empty one. we finally come across a lounge occupied by a guy talking on his phone. this doesn't bother us and we go inside and melt into the furniture. i am still more talkative than the others and i basically rant stream-of-consciousness about the insane world i am visiting inside my head. the kid on the phone at a certain point gets bugged out and says something like "whoa wtf did you kids smoke?" i reply with some insane remark and he leaves minutes later, undoubtedly spooked. we turn off the lights.

my mental journies are deviating further and further from reality. i choose to destroy myself, and with it the entire planet earth. the destruction process feels much like i am folding everything up into itself in a methodical way. then, i create a new earth and return every thing to normal. the creation process feels just like i am unfolding everything from within a dot in the center of my universe stage. i see myself reborn, and i see myself live my life up through to the present (i am 18). the whole experience is euphoric and i feel great about the life i've created, which is the same as my real life but with one glaring difference.

in my new, idealized world, i do not smoke weed!

this discovery really concerns me. i rationalize that this is extremely important and is a sign that i must not smoke weed everyday any longer. the thought of no longer smoke daily, of course, is not very pleasant for me. (i've smoked daily for damn near 3 years, minus one 6-month break last year when i was tested) i get pissed off and try to take the trip in another direction. sure enough, i am quckly back in my empty universe stage gazing at the colorful rainbow horizontal planes dancing around and bouncing every which way.

i trip along and all is well until all of a sudden i open my eyes to the scariest of OEVs i've ever experienced. entire faces of the walls in the lounge, huge chunks of the walls, ceiling, and floor slide out and toward me as though i am in some sort of claustrophic nightmare. i have less and less room to breathe and it occurs to me that if things continue the way they are going, i am going to be crushed. i rush to the door and turn the handle. it opens! whew, i breathe a sigh of relief as i realize i am just in a trip and everything is ok.

here, i make the mistake of questioning the trip and i wonder why hell i am trying to crush myself. now, i remember the craziness i had experienced earlier when recreating myself. its the weed! i realize that the trip is one step ahead of me and is tricking me into a thought loop of how i need to stop smoking weed everyday. it is not like any thought loop i've ever experienced. conventional thought loops are so intense that they just take over my mind completely until i break out of them. this thought loop however, was one that was easily broken in the short term, but impossible to end completely because of its trickiness. the trip was outsmarting me by allowing me to trip out, find myself in a different world, then be presented with imminent death that forced me to confront the only thing on my mind: not smoking weed daily.

the second major trick is just as scary as the first. i am sitting on the floor or a chair when i begin to float up, through the roof, and into space. i soon see that i am resting on an enormous pillar that is shooting me through space at incredible speed. i see many pillars around me, none higher than mine, and they are all at different height but shooting up just as fast. when my pillar slows down, my whole field of vision is eclipsed by blackness and i see nothing at all but a hollow pillar right in front of me. it is my only way out and it presumably will lead to my death. now, i am deeply in an unreal trip scenario, but i am somehow able to remove myself from it for a second to consult the other trippers in the room and ask them "what the fuck do i do when i am faced with death?!" at this time, the others are entirely spaced out, so i am forced to think for myself. i am back in the scenario and i take the plunge down the hollow tube.

*poof* i am back in the lounge, with my eyes open and everything as it should be.

right around this time, i encounter another very strange experience that confirmed my anxieties over marijuana dependence. i don't remember what triggered it, but sometime me and Y mutually agree we are both about to transcend our current reality (die?), but not in a bad way. we agree that at the moment that we transcend, we need to be looking at something special. Y decides she needs to look at a picture on her phone at the special moment of transcendence. (it would make sense that the moment of transcendence was a part of a song, but we had no music hooked up except for on earphones so thats impossible. X doesn't remember this part at all so i guess it will always be a mystery what exactly it was that was supposed to be important.) i think to myself and decide that when the moment comes i want to be looking at a picture of my older and only sister on my phone. somehow the trip tricks me into think that my phone is set up so that the picture it displays when i turn it up is my sister. so i hit the power button at just the right time and wait for the phone to shut down synchronized to the special moment. when the moment comes, however, i am not looking at my sister but instead at my beautiful glass bong! despite this being perfectly normal, as my non-tripping self knows well that my phone is set to display my bong as it turns off, it really shocks me. i think about how i have to quit smoking for a while before my thoughts finally drift.

after a series of intense mini-trips consisting of more pretty colors and complex geometric constructions, i arrive at yet another mindset. i feel as though i am at the top of the hill and finishing up my peak. i feel as though i must now make a choice as to whether or not i accept the trip, and the conclusion that i can no longer smoke weed daily, or reject the trip and the conclusion. i s'pose that because of my experiences with psilocybin and my deep respect for the shrooms and the lessons they've taught me, i choose to accept this trip and its conclusion. at the moment i decide, i am launched into a dramatic and intense final climax. i destroy the planet and everything in the universe. but i don't stop there. i also destroy my stage, the "universe-at-large." now, for the first time this trip, my stage is not the endless black void of space. instead, it is a melting scene of pastel tie-died colors swirling around, much like the drempels viusal program the serves as my desktop on this PC. the colorful swirls are omnipresent and i am at a loss to destroy or otherwise control them. i realize this inability and "bounce" into the other direction. from a point at the nucleus of the tie-died universe, i unfold the black void that i had earlier destroyed. i proceed to create the earth, human-beings, and eventually my own parents. the next step is me, and i put a lot of mental energy into this part. i "grow" myself up exactly as i like, and exactly as i grew up in real life. the whole time i am seeing imagery from my life that is perfectly accurate except for the spectacular hallucinations that augment every image. i am in awe. when i am grown up to age 18, the sequence ends and i feel as though i have "set it in stone" and completed the journey.

my thoughts drift off and before i know i am coming out of being half asleep. again, this is totally unlike psylocibin in that the line between tripping and sleeping is greatly blurred in the case of the amanitas. with class the next day (i slept through them) i decide to head back to my room and go to sleep. i do this and wake up in the morning (3 pm) feeling fantastic.

it's 7:30 pm now and i am still deep in the afterglow, which is very similar to the afterglow of a psilly trip. however, this trip is a special case as amanitas are widely believed to be inferior to psilocybes. i feel as though i must spread the word and share this terrific drug with the world.

overall, my trip last night was not as euphoric as my trips on psilocybes. after a psilocybin trip, i nearly always am bummed that its over and want to trip again soon. not the case today. i would like to try amanitas again but my desire is not nearly as urgent as it is after a psilocybin trip. i've never tried ayahuasca, but i can say that the visions i saw last night could not be attributed to psilocybin or lsd. they were simply too realistic and on-the-ball. in many ways, i feel as though this trip was very much like a successful ibogaine treatment, as it convinced me so effectively that my weed smoking habits were unhealthy. my plan is not to quit completely until i trip on cubensis next weekend and confirm what i learned last night. i feel it is entirely possible that i will feel uncomfortable when i do get high later on tonight.

it's interesting to note that i tripped the hardest of everyone, possibly because i am a lightweight at 140#. also, X, Y, and Z all ate extra grams a couple hours into there trips. despite their higher doses, they did not lose control to the extent that i did. importantly, everyone had a good time and nobody got sick.

i hope this report convinces some shroomerites to give amanitas a try. i think it presents an interesting point concerning soma's identity and can say for sure after the trip that in no ways was it unlike the descriptions i've read of the soma of yore. i will post an update concerning whether or not i cut back on the reefer. peace.

[Hippie3]

some pix from our DVD-

[Hippie3]

see http://www.jamesarthur.net/mushroom_new.html

[candykid420]

fucking beautiful.

[Hippie3]

they sure are.
a pity they make me drool like a fool.

[reverend trips]

amanitas eh!
thats the first time i've heard of them, are they really that potent?
they look kinda scary.
can they be cultivated indoors?

[jjoj]

they are potent but give a different high than psilocybes.

these mushrooms also have great historical significance in shaping religions of the world.

you should fear them. they're not supposed to be that "enjoyable", so to speak.

they cannot be cultivated indoors due to the special symbiotic relationship they have with confierous trees (pine?).

[Hippie3]

another pic from our DVD

[mad_messiah]

amanitas are strange, i live in russia, here grows a lot of them, you can find a lot of them in a sity park, but still many ppl here belive thet amanitas suck, i don't think so, but for sure it provides much more bad trips comparing to cubie

[toad]

Amanitas
a very powerful ally
not to be taken lightly

[reverend trips]

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...sPageName=WDVW
would these be worth the $$
i'm very interested in this amanita experience.

[max]

Collect your own and just use the skin of the caps. Stronger trip, less cost, a better experience picking your own and who the hell knows what you are buying off ebay. In fact, if ebay finds out, they will delete that item!

[I_am_me]

If I was planning on buying them I would go with a sponsor such as bouncingbearbotanicals.com

[Hippie3]

i tried them
3 times
they do suck, imhfo.

[candykid420]

^^^

Yeah they do. Not worth your time, especially the process of preparing them.

[mad_messiah]

they cannot be cultivated indoors due to the special symbiotic relationship they have with confierous trees (pine?).

just any tree which can rovide the mycelium which connects to the tree rootin system with enough water, berch, pine, oak etc.

Collect your own and just use the skin of the caps

actualy you can use the whole mushroom, but you shoud dry it in oven at arround 200C thet will turn poison, which contains in the sroom in psycoactive acids, and it's very iportant since the poison can kill you and it's very strong
The russian name for this shroom is "moohomor" what means "fly killer" (it can kill a fly if the fly sits on it and eats something from the top of the shroom)

[max]

Ya, you can use the whole mushroom but the skin of the cap is much more stronger. And considering that these mushrooms usually grow in abundance, one can afford to stick with the higher-end cap skin rather than the lower end stalk and gills. But it's all good!

[lyqwyd]

Amanita muscaria - A New Outlook
Man, I love new insights; yet take full responsability for what you do with them [may take a few edits to get the spacing formatting right]

Cut from bump of DD who posted:
Cut from a post by a salvia list member.

I've tried it both the 'typical' way ala Hippies exp. above and the way this guy recommends. I'd say he knows what he's talking about as far as dosage goes. The rest is up for grabs, but I don't feel like editing it out.

"As usually used by people in this country, large quantities of the rather nauseating dry mushrooms are imbibed, the person gets sick for a while, then has a rather fearful and scary trip. Thus, the rather grim reputation of muscaria gets perpetuated. People who gather it from the wild and eat it by mistake usually get hysterical when they feel the onset of nausea and psychic effects and have a royal freak-out (it starts with, "I've eaten a poisonous mushroom! I'm going to die!!!"). This also perpetuates the dark repute of what is probably Mother Nature's finest winter tonic and a wonderfully benign life-enhancer WHEN PROPERLY USED! Why do I seem to be the only modern person who has ever thought of using this stuff in a safe and sane manner? People are less original than they think, and ancient tribal taboos are more potent than supposedly sophisticated modern academics realise...

I have used Amanita muscaria continuously for several months at a time, and I think it is a real health-enhancer when correctly used. The key factor is dosage.

Basically, use no more than 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time, and no more than about half a cup in a day. If muscaria agrees with you, you can use it every day if you like throughout the cooler months of the year. I think it is too warming for the hot days of summer, but fine the rest of the year, and it can really help you to stand up to winter cold.

The first problem is supply. There are sources for the dried mushroom and "extracts", but they are rather questionable and extremely expensive and I don't recommend them at all. You should gather this mushroom from the wild when it is in season. You can ask your local mushroomering club (unlike, say---morels, they won't be secretive about sources of Amanita muscaria unless they think they are protecting you from suicide), or consult books or a specialist in the regional mycology at your local university, but be prepared to do some research. It is found throughout the country in forested areas, and while the season is short, the mushroom often fruits in great abundance, and you can easily gather a year's supply. In some areas there are two seasons, one in summer and the other in the fall. If you have a choice, gather the summer mushrooms as there is evidence that they are more potent and have less physical side effects.

Fortunately, there is nothing really dangerous that looks like this most distinctive of all mushrooms, but in most of the Eastern U.S., Fly Mushroom is golden rather than red in color,(this kind is called Amanita muscaria formosa) and you need to be more careful. Trust me, it is well worth the trouble to research this mushroom to be able to gather it safely! Don't be too open about what you are up to, as people are very apt to freak out if you tell them. Amanita muscaria is not in any way a controlled substance however.

Beware of what you read from the "authorities" on the effects of this mushroom. An absolutely INCREDIBLE amount of misinformation has been printed about Amanita muscaria, and I probably know as much about its medicinal effects as anyone in the country.

Once you have your mushrooms, you need to think about preservation. The traditional way to do this is the one you should avoid, namely drying. It gives the mushrooms a bitter, metallic taste and makes them rather nauseating. You can keep them in the fridge a few days wrapped in paper towels provided you cut off the usually maggot-containing stalk. You can mince the shrooms with garlic and pickle in vinegar and salt, preserved in the fridge (a spoonful or so is great in a salad dressing). To keep longer, dip the mushrooms in brandy (or rum, or whatever spirit you like...) and freeze them. You must include a preservative when freezing or the mushrooms will spoil even while frozen. You can also sautee the mushrooms in olive oil or butter and freeze cooked, if you want to avoid alcohol.

These mushrooms have an absolutely delicious taste when properly prepared, and are one of the outstanding gourmet fungi of the world. The intensity of the flavor seems to have some correlation with the potency, so you can get an idea of the quality of the raw mushrooms by tasting a little bit. If the mushroom is strong, the meaty flavor will fill your whole mouth. Amanita muscaria seems to especially favor rich French sauces and hearty Italian ones. It can really enhance the flavor of meat dishes, even in amounts as small as a teaspoon or two, and I have used it in this way as a flavor enhancer. It is far finer than MSG. For some reason, it does not seem to go well with chile or Mexican dishes. It is also excellent in omelets and scrambled eggs. One of my favorite ways to prepare it is to sautee it with minced shallots in butter, then add a little sour cream and salt and pepper. Served over a slice of toasted French bread, it is simply wonderful! It is also superb in pastas.

Please remember not to be beguiled by the wonderful flavor and overindulge. There is a record of a man eating a hundred mushrooms at a meal and soon after going into a coma. They were able to save his life, though I honestly don't know how after such an insane overdose. Keep everybody's total intake to no more than 1 to 2 tablespoons per person. Eaten at breakfast, amanita will make everybody cheerful and energetic. Consumed in a fine dinner in the evening with a good wine, it will make people happy, talkative, sociable and relaxed. I have never seen its equal as an overall social mood-enhancer, and despite using it on many occasions, I have never had anyone report a negative experience. The only complaint I have received is from people who say they feel nothing, but even these become noticeably more cheerful and talkative.

My mother sometimes puts a little in my stepfather's dinner to keep him awake instead of falling asleep immediately after eating. Keep it away from pets, especially cats who are lethally sensitive to it. I feel it should be kept from children too, especially small ones. We both like to include some in breakfast when we need extra energy for the day.

The basic value of muscaria, besides being a delightful tonic, is in dealing with seasonal and weather related depressive conditions. It really helped me to get through my first real winter in Flagstaff (we had twenty feet of snow and the temperature got down as far as 25 below zero) after a lifetime of living in the desert. I would wake up on a grim, iron-gray morning wanting to spend the day hiding under the blankets, feeling stiff and depressed and chilled to the bone. I would trudge down to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee, then cut off two tablespoons of frozen muscaria from a package in the freezer and sautee it in a little butter. I scrambled it with eggs and cheese, and enjoyed the rich flavor. Within 15 minutes I would feel a surge of energy and cheerfulness. I became toasty warm and envigorated.

The morning would look beautifully pearly-gray, and I anticipated all the things I was going to happily do. I used Amanita muscaria daily throughout the cold winter months and it wonderfully enhanced my winter-hardiness. It really got me through the acclimatization process. When muscaria works well, it puts a subtle tension in your muscles and makes you want to go out and do something. I am prone to seasonal affective disorder, but muscaria completely counteracts that. It even made Christmas a genuinely happy occasion. For the first time, I experienced the holidays without a hint of depression. If I sound a little bit in love with the stuff, you are correct.

The summers have been too dry recently for muscaria, but I hope we get lucky this year and I can store some up.

During the early fall, before it got cold and when I had large quantities of fresh mushrooms, I experimented with larger doses (but no more than 1 cup total in a day). With 4 tablespoons at a meal, I often had a little nausea, and would either get drowsy or become hyper and speedy. In the latter case, I often became hyperaware, with a distinct feeling of the heebie-jeebies, like you get when you sleep in an old house and can hear every crack and creak. Both this and the nausea would wear off in half an hour. If I continued such doses throughout the day, I felt a pleasant but distinct sense of intoxication and an oddly detached feeling like being wrapped in a soft fuzzy blanket. By nightfall, I would have rather pretty closed-eye visuals of what looked like jewel-encrusted objects. I would go out into the nearby woods to meditate at night. The darkness was deep and velvety and welcoming and house lights were supernally luminous and beautiful. In meditation, I felt wonderfully expanded and immersed in a blissful ocean of quiet yet profound peace and joyfulness.

I have read the 9th Book of the Rig Veda (the one with the Soma Hymns) under the full influence of Amanita muscaria and I am absolutely convinced that it really is the Sacred Soma of Ancient India; it was remarkably easy to identify the sentiments the authors expressed with what I, myself, was feeling. I don't think anything else would have the same effect, certainly not Syrian Rue (completely non-euphoric) or psilocybe (physically gruelling if you attempt extended use). Two things the ancient poets mentioned that I also found true was that Soma gave you deep, restful, healing sleep when you were ill, and it banished fearfulness and gave courage without also banishing your common sense.

The ancient poems clearly describe using Soma for multiple times per day (Vedic Law allowed you to use it three times in one day) and taking it daily for extended periods as a tonic and medicine, just as I had done. Such usage would be SERIOUSLY harmful and counterproductive if you tried doing it with psilocybe mushrooms!

The courage thing matters too. I am somewhat prone to shyness and social phobia, but not with Amanita muscaria. If I ever try parachuting, I suspect that the only way I would be able to get myself to jump out of the airplane that first time would be to use a little muscaria before-hand. Perhaps it could be useful in dealing with phobias and shyness. The ancient poems certainly suggest that.

I didn't use such high doses again after winter started, but I experimented with abruptly ceasing use temporarily after that period to test for addiction potential. I liked it so much that I was a little concerned about this. It took 3 days to completely come down after extended use of muscaria, but there were no withdrawal effects and no craving. I had the same experience when I ran out of my frozen mushrooms the following spring. I think it is reasonably safe in that regard. The Siberian natives often used muscaria rather abusively in the winter with some signs of physical harmful effects (very similar to those associated with kava kava addiction), but this reflected the horrendous winters they had to endure and the lack of any alternatives. The natives say that the potential harm of muscaria was trivial compared to the harmfulness of the Russian vodka which replaced it. They also used it as a medicine to give restful sleep to the seriously ill and as a stimulating tonic for hard work in the winter. I and a friend have confirmed this winter tonic effect. The potency is increased if you combine it with Oriental Red Ginseng; such a combination can give great endurance and cold-resistance. On the other hand, I did not find muscaria particularly helpful by itself in straight depression; it is primarily meant for seasonal and weather-related depressive conditions and possibly shyness and phobias. A wonderful gift from Sweet Mother Gaia!

In animal experiments, muscaria had the ability to potentiate tranquilizers, sedatives, narcotics and other pharamaceuticals that effect the central nervous system, and should probably not be used with potent examples of these agents (I had no problems with OTC medicines or Tylenol#3 with codeine, however). It can also increase muscle tone (mild overdoses cause noticeable twitching) and should be used cautiously in people with back or orthopedic problems. In small doses, the active ingredients show anticonvulsant and antispasmodic effects, but the opposite is true with large doses, so it should probably not be used by epileptics, especially those requiring medication. It also has very perceptable appetite-suppressing effects (far stronger than amphetamines in animal experiments), which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the situation. I have used it for weight control. I find that a fairly small amount of amanita-laced food completely satisfies the appetite and makes you more physically active to boot, so it may have potential here...

Anyway, don't take my word for it, explore this wonderful fungus for yourself, just don't overindulge! I have never used it in seriously entheogenic doses, I found it far too spooky and unnerving long before I got to that point, but you can read vivid accounts in various "trip reports" available on the web. Most people who have used it in such large doses tend to become afraid of it and avoid it, so such usage is an entirely different matter than the uses I have described here. I can't help you with that."

The guy has an interesting idea; I've never bothered with amanitas coz everyone I know who has partaken said they suck. Maybe as a medicinal (nature's anti-depressant?) they are more beneficial... If you have that many near you hip, pick em and freeze em the way the author of that essay describes and see how she goes next winter.

[EZSkankin]

i don't know if anyone has said this yet but i think amanitas are bad for your liver if you get in the habit of eating them frequently. Never buy preprepared amanitas because most of the time they haven't been dried correctly. They have to be dried at a low temperature to keep the essential ingredient from decomposing.

EZ

[Hippie3]

i think amanitas are bad for your liver if you get in the habit of eating them frequently.

plz cite documentation of your claim

[Soliver1]

I've read that writeup on Amanitas being used in lower doses, but that's the
ONLY positive writeup I've seen . . . I've always wondered if there's anything to it,
but if anyone's tried they haven't said mush about it

They sucked the times I tried 'em...

Amanitas, have Ibotenic acid and when it is dried in the son or taken by someone the sun/body will turn the ibotenic acid into muscimol... Ibotenic acid will make you feel sick and give the negative effects everyone talks about, but the muscimol gives the high that many talk about... Also, even if the person eats them with ibotenic acid, after it is change in the body, it passes unchanged, as muscimol, into the users urine, and can be drank for the good effects(that is if you can drink urine!! LOL)... This is all from research and talking to those who have used them, though, I haven't had the experience, personally, so take this info with a grain of salt... Anyways, I believe this is correct but am no expert...
Peace...

[mad_messiah]

Amanitas, have Ibotenic acid and when it is dried in the son or taken by someone the sun/body will turn the ibotenic acid into muscimol

tht's what i told about, if you dry it at high temp (150-200C) you speed up the procces and get rid of the acid

[pskovinsky]

My research has suggested a lower temp. According to what i've read (may or may not be true, but the authors sounded sure of it) the chemicle reaction occurs at 160f or so, they suggest baking them in an oven at 200f, collecting the juice that cooks out of them, and then either pouring it back into the caps, or just drinking it.

I haven't tried it.
A friend of mine did, and found it to be a rush, and a feeling of power, but no visuals, or anything else generaly connected with a "trip" as such.

[Soliver1]

I'd love to see some posts about actual amanita experiences that didn't suck,
from the original person doing the mushroom,
pics, methods, etc... there's just so much bad news out there on these things...

If there's a positive mental effect to be had from ingesting them in a particular way, I'd
love to hear it - from someone with first hand knowledge.
I've picked these many times in the past but my couple of bad times have made me not
want to mess. I ate them raw 2x and it wasn't an experience I'd like to repeat,
sort of like eating nutmeg or datura...

Any takers?

[vrooota]

uhhhh nutmeg is the worst
gag reflex tryin to tell me something LOL

[Soliver1]

Just spent some QT on erowid looking at the amanita writeups . . .

Seems most of the bad trips involve megadoses and / or uncooked shrooms.
Some folks cooked and still had a bad time -
there isn't a solid connection I can see, no vague agreement on what is a good way
to go about consuming these things.

One dude said that he felt "shooting pains like someone pushing hundreds of needles
into my dick - no one here on erowid ever mentioned that . . . "

Yowch . . .

[max]

Even when prepared properly there is no guarentee that the trip will be a good one. These are not psillys, the intent is not to get into a laughing state. It's a spiritual trip and you have to be in the right frame of mind and even then there is very real possibility of having a lousy trip. Everybodies body reacts differently and every mushroom is of undetermined potency. To many variables to ever predict correctly.

[viraljimmy]

I tried the amanita extract from iamshaman.
I had a slight trippy buzz, colors were
brighter and I felt happier and relaxed.

Probably lasted 4 to 6 hours, not sure.
Made me real tired - couldn't get off the couch.
Not that great.

I've tried nutmeg before too.
It's nasty, not recommended!
It WILL make you trip, if you eat enough.

I ate a whole bottle and tripped for
like 2 days, no shit. And a hangover
after that - from the nutmeg.
My eyes turned yellow,
I'm guessing some kind of poisoning.

The 'experts' at Telluride recommended 1/2 dry gram of Amanita with your normal cubie dose for best results without getting sick. They seem to be a bit too toxic for most of us to handle much more than that.
RR

[mike illogical]

I remember doing these with some native american friends out west and the taste was just about as harsh as peyote, and the buzz left much to be desired as far as being fun,definately for a purpose naot for play. Those guys did something to prepare them buy heating over a fire upside down, the cap filled with a liquid that was then poured off and each of us took a teaspoonful. Nasty tasting but it does work. I'm not sure that I would feel confident enough to try this on my own without the shaman there to do iprepare it right, [ misinformation removed]

[viraljimmy]

Some amanitas will straight up kill you,
but not the kind we're talking about.
Still, not much reason to fuck with them.

Psilly shrooms are better, safer,
and they have their own shaman
magic history. IMO