Do you sit intentionally with mushrooms as a meditation? Ingesting 0.2-0.5g is just enough for about a 3 hour bellcurve with another couple hours+ of afterglow, for me. To know your personal dosage it is best to start low and slow when you are experimenting with dosage. Be patient or prepare to be brave if you crank it too high out the gate. Of course you can always increase or decrease your dosage for desired effect.
Here’s how I like to roll with it when tapping into deep mindfulness:
First, set an intention. It can be simple like, “Experience lightness.” Or you can go a little deeper if you want to express or relieve your body of blocks or inflammation. For example, I have a shoulder that is impacted by stress. I can breathe through the tension via meditation and massage. Pick out a playlist or guided meditation to help you focus your intention.
Next, ingest your mushroom. You can eat them straight, I roll mine into dried mango slices sometimes. You can also lemon tek which is soaking the mushroom in lemon juice to reconstitute and make into a wellness shot or a tea for sipping. Lemon tek is good if your stomach has sensitivities to this fungi, it breaks down the components and releases the psilocin compound, and can bring the hallucinatory aspect on more quickly.
Hour 1: Stretch. Eat a light plant based snack. Make some tea. Grab a journal if you like. I like to shower, moisturize my skin, and do other self-care routines to help relax my body and mind.
Hour 2: Breathe. You should be feeling the effects of the mushroom throughout your body and experiencing light visuals. Turn on your playlist, sip your tea, and with your journal close by, close your eyes. Breathe deep into your intention. Allow yourself to feel. Release in energetic ways you are able to tap into in this headspace.
Hour 3: Accept. Breathe some more. Prepare mentally for additional, less intense, waves of bodily or visual responses. This is a great time to incorporate movement. If I’ve been sitting or laying in one position for a while, I like to do a dynamic body scan. This is where I move each part of my body from toes to the top of my head with a scalp massage. Take the time to reflect in your journal or in silence. Ask yourself how you might integrate the concepts that came up for you during the meditation. Release more if you need to. We all deserve a good cry, even tears of elated happiness are welcome!
Be patient or prepare to be brave if you crank it too high out the gate.
This past weekend I did this routine and settled into something profound. I set the intention of reflection. I am personally feeling transitional energy and the need to understand where I am headed next. I sat with a guided meditation from Insight Timer about cutting energetic cords and restoring balance. I wanted to see if there were any old energetic attachments that I was anchored to, anything tethering me to the past. The meditation and the mushrooms reminded me that the body is regenerated about every seven years or so. This realization sent me on the pathway to reconnecting with myself at each of those life stages; six years old, thirteen, twenty-one, and so on. I realized that these are major milestones in our collective lives. These moments are our rights of passage.
To integrate, I started to look at my goals in seven year chunks as well. This put an interesting perspective on aging and the role of the elder in our collective lives. Not only are there more lives to be lived, but I am also at the beginning of a new seven year cycle, exciting! Integration takes time, psychedelic epiphanies can be profound and complex in their simplicities. While some folks may propose these types of therapies as instantaneous anti-depressives, it is important to note that the work always comes from within and it takes practice.
Share your meditation and dosing techniques in the comments!